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THE “AUTHORISED TEXT BOOK” SERIES. 


A 

MANUAL 


OF 

ANCIENT HISTORY, 


FROM THE REMOTEST TIMES TO THE 
OVERTHROW OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE, A.D. 476. 


DR LEONHARD SCHMITZ, PHD., LL.D., F.R.S.E., 

«/ 

PRINCIPAL OF THE LONDON COLLEGE OF THE INTERNATIONAL 

EDUCATION SOCIETY. 


With Copious Chronological Tables. 


FIFTH EDITION. 


r t • 

i ' 

EDINBURGH : 

SETON & MACKENZIE, 81 GEORGE STREET. 
TORONTO : W. C. CHEWETT & CO. 

MDCCCLXIX. 


[Copyright.} 




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I 





HISTORY 


V 


OF 

THE NATIONS OE ANTIQUITY. 

-♦- 

INTRODUCTION. 

The name antiquity, in its most general acceptation, is 
commonly understood to comprise the whole period from the 
creation down to the overthrow of the western empire in a.d. 
47 6, and the history of that vast expanse of time is termed the 
“History of Antiquity,” or “ Ancient History.” But neither 
the beginning nor the end of this history is the same for all the 
nations of antiquity. As to the beginning of the human race 
in general, it is obvious that, unless assisted by revelation, 
man could have possessed hut very little or no knowledge at 
all, and after the creation of man many centuries must have 
passed away before those communities could be formed in the 
primitive seats of our race, which we term states or nations, and 
which alone form the subjects of general history. But even 
the beginnings of these national or political associations, to 
whatever period they belong, do not yet constitute the begin¬ 
ning of real history, for the accounts of the formation of states 
and the foundation of cities are generally transmitted to later 
ages by mere oral tradition, which is ever changing and expand¬ 
ing, until in the end it is impossible to separate its nucleus of 
truth from what has grown upon and around it. Real history 



2 


ANCIENT HISTORY. 


does not commence until the time when contemporary records 
of some kind or another are drawn up to assist the memory of 
man in preserving for posterity the memorials of a nation’s 
life. We do not mean to assert that absolutely nothing can 
be known of those periods about which we have no contem¬ 
porary records, for tradition also may hand down, and has 
handed down, a vast amount of information concerning past 
ages, but such information can never be as perfect and free 
from error as the accounts drawn up by contemporaries, or by 
persons living so near the events themselves, as to be able, 
with a reasonable amount of judgment and discernment, to 
ascertain the truth. Written records fix for ever that which 
would otherwise be subject to a perpetual process of change 
and modification. 

The possibility of drawing up records of a nation’s history 
depends upon a variety of circumstances, and, above all, upon 
the art of writing. As this art did not become known to all 
the ancient nations at once, but was gradually imparted by 
one to another, it follows that contemporary records were 
made in some countries at a much earlier period than in others, 
and it must be observed in general, that the Asiatic nations 
and the Egyptians practised the art of writing many centuries 
before it was introduced into Europe. Hence we possess 
authentic and trustworthy accounts of some Asiatic nations 
at a period when the history of Europe is still buried in utter 
darkness. Asia is the cradle of the human race, in Asia the 
first states were formed, and it is from Asia that Europe and 
Africa received their inhabitants. Hence the traditions and 
history of the Asiatic nations go back to more remote periods 
than those of any nation in Europe. 

While thus the nations claiming our attention in antiquity 
widely differ in regard to the points at which their respective 
histories and traditions commence, the point at which antiquity 
terminates is no less different with different nations. The 



INTRODUCTION. 


3 


epoch generally assumed as the line of demarcation between 
antiquity and the middle ages, is the overthrow of the western 
empire of Rome, and, so far as the south-west of Europe is 
concerned, that event marks, in a sufficiently striking manner, 
the transition to an entirely new state of things:—all that 
was peculiar to the ancient world had then ceased, and a 
new order of things had sprung up; the ancient empire was 
broken to pieces, new kingdoms were built up on its ruins, 
and civilisation, which had before reached a certain culmi¬ 
nating point, now began a new career, struggling through 
many centuries of ignorance and barbarism, until in the end 
it rose to that height which constitutes the glory of our own 
age. But upon the eastern world that event exercised little 
or no influence, for the Greek empire continued its wretched 
existence for nearly a thousand years longer, and the Asiatic 
nations also preserved their previous forms and institutions 
without any material change, until the establishment of 
Mahommedanism revolutionised nearly the whole of western 
Asia and the north of Africa. The nations of central and 
eastern Asia, lastly, were not affected at all by the event 
which so completely changed the aspect of western Europe. 
But notwithstanding this discrepancy, it is convenient, at least 
for Europeans, to regard the fall of the western empire of 
Rome as the termination of antiquity, and as the commence¬ 
ment of a new era in history. Down to this event, therefore, 
it is our intention in this manual to carry the history of the 
ancient nations. 

It must not be inferred from the foregoing remarks that 
the history of the human race is altogether involved in im¬ 
penetrable darkness during those remote periods, about which 
neither traditions nor written records have come down to us, 
for there are other sources from which a certain amount 
of historical knowledge can be obtained, concerning man as 
well as concerning the globe he inhabits. The earth, and 


4 


ANCIENT HISTORY. 


the mighty revolutions it has undergone since the days of its 
creation, and before it became the fit abode for man, are not, 
properly speaking, subjects of a history which is concerned 
about man alone; but being the scene of his joys and 
sorrows, its history, as revealed by the science of geology, 
and its description furnished by that of geography, are inter¬ 
esting, nay, indispensable handmaids to the history of man. 
Geology, though less necessary to a full understanding of the 
history of mankind, affords us some insight into the otherwise 
mysterious revolutions through which the earth has passed 
before assuming its present form and character. What 
geology is to the history of the earth, comparative philology 
has proved to be to the history of man. Ages about which 
all traditions and all histories are silent, would be like sealed 
books to us, were it not for comparative philology, a child of 
the nineteenth century; for the analysis and comparison of 
languages allow us every now and then to catch a glimpse of 
the relations subsisting among nations often separated, during 
the historical times, by thousands of miles; of the state of 
their civilisation, and of their migrations, before they reached 
the countries in which ultimately they took up their perma¬ 
nent abode. One example may suffice to show the flood of 
light which comparative philology in our days has thrown 
upon the history of mankind: it is now established as a fact 
beyond all doubt, that the nations on the banks of the Ganges 
and the Indus, as well as the ancient Persians, spoke a lan¬ 
guage radically identical with those spoken in Europe from 
the earliest times, including both Latin and Greek, and perhaps 
even the Etruscan. This great fact has dispelled a mass of 
false notions formerly entertained in regard to the ancient 
population of southern Europe. The radical identity of all 
these languages shows incontrovertibly that there must have 
existed at one time a close connection among the nations 
which speak them, and that in fact all these nations must have 


INTRODUCTION. 


sprung from one common stock. Of this fact, neither tradition 
nor history has preserved the slightest trace. The primitive 
seats of man were in all probability in the north-west of India, 
or the highlands of Armenia; thence the branches spread in all 
directions, until the ocean set a limit to their migrations. It 
has thus been established that most of the races of men, from 
the Ganges in the east, to the Atlantic in the west, belong to 
one great family, and it is probable that further investigations 
will show that all the two thousand languages spoken by man 
are traceable to one common parent, and will thus confirm the 
record of Genesis, that all mankind is descended from one com¬ 
mon father and one common mother. The study of language 
will then dispel the idea of several originally distinct races, 
which physiologists have assumed for the purpose of explaining 
the physical differences which present themselves among the 
inhabitants of the several parts of our globe. There can be no 
doubt that, for practical purposes, it is useful to divide mankind, 
as it at present exists, into three or even six different races, each 
presenting peculiar characteristics, which neither climate nor 
mode of living apparently ever produces ; but though this is 
true of the present age of the world, who will undertake to 
prove that it was so from the beginning ? Is it not possible 
that for many generations after his first creation man was 
more plastic and more easily affected by climate and the other 
influences which at present are nearly inoperative in deter¬ 
mining our physical and mental constitution ? If a man by 
living in central Africa does not now become a negro, it does 
not follow that it was always so; and hence we conceive 
that the strongly marked differences between existing races 
afford no ground for assuming, as many have done, that 
these differences have existed from the day of creation, 
or that God created not one, but several pairs of human 
beings. 

Another means of furnishing us with some idea of the 


6 


ANCIENT HISTORY. 


history of a nation, in the absence of literary memorials, is 
to be found in its architectural remains; for even if they bear 
no inscriptions, or such inscriptions as cannot be deciphered 
and understood, the mere forms and structure of their houses, 
temples, tombs, and other edifices, often reveal to us at least 
some parts of a nation’s life and history, and that too some¬ 
times in a more vivid manner than written records would 
have done. Hence the mode of life of the Egyptians, and 
their ordinary pursuits, were known to the world from their 
sculptured monuments, long before the clue to the reading of 
the hieroglyphics had been discovered ; and the same may 
still be asserted of the Etruscans, whose inscribed monuments 
have not yet been deciphered. 

It must not, however, be supposed that ancient history 
becomes authentic and continuous from the moment the art 
of writing is discovered and applied to the recording of events, 
for the earliest records are lost to us in almost every instance; 
and even if they were extant, they would scarcely furnish 
more than the skeleton of history. We are therefore dependent 
upon later writers, who drew up their accounts by the aid 
of legends and traditions. The value of such accounts 
depends upon a variety of circumstances, and the historian is 
obliged to proceed with the utmost caution and wariness in 
examining, weighing, and discriminating the authenticity of 
the sources from which he derives his information. As a 
great many of the historical writings of the ancients have 
perished, he is often reduced to the necessity of filling up gaps 
by combination and conjecture, or from analogy. Even at 
periods about which his sources of information flow more 
copiously, he has to contend with difficulties that are unknown 
to the historian of modern times. Such, for instance, is the 
unsettled state of ancient chronology. There was no chronolo¬ 
gical era common to all the nations of antiquity ; every people 
had its own system ; and while some reckoned by lunar years. 


INTRODUCTION. 


7 


others computed time by solar ones; with one nation, more¬ 
over, the year commenced at one season, while with another 
its beginning belonged to one quite different. To reduce all 
these discrepancies to one uniform system of chronology is 
a matter of extreme difficulty, and w^e must often be satisfied, 
after all, with results only approximating to the truth. We 
cannot pretend in this work to enter into a critical examination 
of this and other knotty points connected with ancient history, 
but our object will be to give those results of modern inquiries 
which in our judgment appear to be best entitled to our 
acceptance. 

According to the principle that man, and more especially 
those political associations of men which we call states, are 
the proper subjects of history, all the nations that ever existed 
during the vast period of antiquity come within the compass 
of ancient history; but the claim they have upon our atten¬ 
tion varies according to the degree of civilisation they attained, 
and the influence they exercised upon their contemporaries or 
upon posterity. In a work designed for the instruction of the 
young, moreover, it would be out of place to record all that 
is known of every state and tribe we meet with in ancient 
times. A selection therefore has to be made, and a nation 
deserves a more or less prominent place in history in the pro¬ 
portion in which it has either promoted or retarded the pro¬ 
gress of mankind in civilisation. In this view ancient history 
becomes considerably narrowed; it must not, however, be 
imagined that the less important nations will be passed over 
altogether; they will receive their due share of attention, 
whenever they emerge from their obscurity and come in 
contact with other more influential branches of the human 
family. The sacred history of the Jews, however, or the 
account of the direct interference of God in the affairs of the 
Jewish nation, will be excluded from the present work, partly 
because it is, or ought to be, familiar to every one, and partly 


3 


ANCIENT HISTORY. 


because it appears to us to be more adapted for religious than 
for historical instruction, being altogether distinct from ordi¬ 
nary political history. 

There is yet another method by which the domain of 
ancient history is sometimes reduced. For there are his¬ 
torians who confine themselves to the consideration of those 
nations whose history has been transmitted to us by the 
writers of the two classical nations of antiquity, the Greeks 
and Romans, and pass over all others whose history has 
become known to us during the middle ages and in modern 
times, partly from native records, and partly through 
travellers and missionaries. It will be our endeavour in the 
present work to set no such limits to our undertaking, but to 
pass in review all the great nations of antiquity, from what¬ 
ever sources our information regarding them may be derived, 
and thus to exhibit before the young student, in broad out¬ 
lines, as complete a picture of the ancient world as can be 
produced by the extended knowledge of the present age. 
Much that it would be interesting to know and to understand 
more thoroughly, will still remain obscure, being seen only 
through the mist of the many centuries which separate us 
from the events presented to our contemplation. 

As the development of the human race has, on the whole, 
followed the daily course of the sun, we shall begin with the 
nations of eastern Asia, and thence proceed westward till we 
reach the shores of the Atlantic, beyond which ancient history 
does not extend. 


BOOK I. 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


CHAPTER I. 

GEOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF ASIA.—THE EARLIEST SOCIAL AND 
POLITICAL FORMS AMONG ASIATIC NATIONS. 

1. Asia is traversed by an immense plateau or high table¬ 
land, intercepted by numerous elevations and depressions of 
the ground, and occupying nearly one-half of the continent. 
This extends from the Black sea in the West, to the sea of 
Corea in the East of China, and consists of two main parts, 
which may be termed the eastern (the larger) and the western 
highlands of Asia. The former did not become known to 
the classical nations of antiquity until a very late period, and 
the ancients call it Scythia, beyond mount Imaus. This 
eastern highland bears throughout an almost uniform character, 
though its chains of mountains have many breaks and inter¬ 
ruptions. It is surrounded on all sides by lofty ranges of 
mountains, either in such a manner that the enclosed table¬ 
land sinks down towards its centre, from which the mountains 
gradually rise on all sides, or the surrounding mountains rise 
directly from the edge of the table-land. The former is the 
case in the north, where mount Altai forms a kind of circum- 
vallation, while the latter form appears more in the south, about 
the Himalayan mountains, the northern foot of which rises from 
the very edge of the table-land. These mountains and high- 



10 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


lands were regarded by the earliest inhabitants of the East as 
the centre of the earth’s surface, as the habitation of the gods 
and of the blessed, where peace, and light, and splendour 
reigned for ever, and where war and death were unknown. 
It is true all the countries of Asia are grouped around those 
highlands as around a mighty citadel; but the notion that 
they were the abode of happiness appears to have arisen only 
from the sublime grandeur of the mountains, for in reality the 
life of the tribes inhabiting them was poor and wretched, when 
compared with that of the nations occupying the plains, abound¬ 
ing in the most luxurious vegetation and in all the richest gifts 
of nature ; for the former were for the most part nomades, 
that is, tribes wandering with their flocks and herds over the 
extensive steppes, sometimes overrunning as conquerors the 
more fertile countries around their high lands. Their mode 
of life, without any towns or fixed habitations, with few wants, 
and these easily satisfied, remained the same for ages, and it 
was impossible for them to make any considerable progress in 
civilisation. Hence they remained far behind the surrounding 
nations that lived under more favourable circumstances. 

From the central table-land the countries sink down to¬ 
wards the seas in the most different forms : mighty rivers 
with numerous tributaries form extensive water-systems, which 
are at the same time the great high roads along which the 
nations have migrated. The northern part of Asia, sloping 
down from the central highlands, the modern Siberia, does not 
come into consideration in ancient history, but the eastern, 
southern, and western slopes are the scenes of the manifold 
struggles and developments of the Asiatic nations, which will 
engage our attention. In many of these countries, history, 
even in the remotest times, meets with regularly organized 
states, sometimes even displaying a splendour and magnifi¬ 
cence bordering upon the fabulous. Wealthy cities with 
superb temples and palaces form the centres of civilisation 


GENERAL REMARKS. 


11 


and refinement, and an extensive commerce supplies them 
with the comforts and luxuries, for which the East has at all 
times been proverbial. But the very bounties of nature, 
which almost dispensed with the labour of man, at the same 
time rendered him incapable of vigorous exertion, and checked 
his progress, or caused him to sink into listless indolence. 

2. All the nations we meet with in ancient history—with 
the exception, perhaps, of the Chinese and a few others— 
belong to one of two great races, the Indo-Germanic and the 
Semitic. The languages of these two races, notwithstanding 
their almost endless varieties, prove incontestably that each 
of them must have descended from one common root. The 
Semitic race embraces not only those nations which, according 
to the Mosaic account, are descended from Shem, that is, the 
Hebrews and Arabs, but all the tribes from the Tigris to the 
Mediterranean and the Ked sea. It is accordingly encircled 
by the far more extensive territories inhabited by branches of 
the Indo-Germanic race, which comprises, in Asia, the Indians 
and Persians, and in Europe, the Greeks, Bomans, Celts, 
Germans, Slavonians, and Lithuanians. It is owing to this 
greater extension of the Indo-Germanic race that the languages 
spoken by its different branches differ more widely from one 
another than those of the Semitic. For thousands of years 
these two races have been the great promoters of civilisation, 
sometimes the one rising higher in the scale and sometimes 
the other. Their characters diverged at a very early period, 
but they have nevertheless exercised a considerable influence 
upon each other, and at times have contended with each 
other for the sovereignty of the world. The most striking 
differences between them may be briefly stated thus : The 
Semites are distinguished for their quick and keen perception, 
for their bold and restless spirit of enterprise, for their obstinate 
perseverance in the pursuit of their objects, for their spirit of 
exclusiveness in the possession of what they have gained, for 


12 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


their strong passions and sensual propensities, and, above all, 
for their strong desire to comprehend the will of the deity, 
and their lofty aspirations in religion. It is owing to this 
last circumstance that the religious systems recognising the 
existence of only one true God, have originated among Semitic 
nations. The Indo-Germanic race, embracing a multitude of 
nations of different degrees of civilisation and of different 
capabilities, is not so easily characterised; but still the more 
prominent among its branches possess greater clearness and 
calmness of mind, and greater powers of reflection, than the 
Semites; they exhibit great genius for organisation, and a 
wonderful capability for developing the various circumstances 
in which they are placed, as well as for literature and the 
arts, in the last of which the Semites have always been far 
behind them. Their minds being very docile and plastic, 
they have in later times not only adopted the religious systems 
of the Semites, but advanced and developed them so much, 
that at present they far surpass their original instructors. 
They have, in fact, developed all that is great and noble in 
man to such a degree, as to outstrip all other races. 

3. Many Asiatic nations have, or pretend to have, tra¬ 
ditions about their existence as states, which go back many 
thousands of years before the commencement of the Christian 
era. It need hardly be remarked that such traditions are of 
no historical value; the account now universally adopted in 
Christendom, and at the same time the most plausible in itself, 
is that contained in the Scriptures, according to which the first 
pair of human beings was created about four thousand years 
before the birth of Christ. It is impossible to determine the part 
of Asia where our first parents were placed by their creator, 
nor can we trace with any accuracy the gradual increase and 
extension of our race. All we know is, that in the course of 
timo men spread from Asia over the two other ancient conti¬ 
nents of Africa and Europe. The Mosaic account divides all 


GENERAL REMARKS. 


13 


the nations of the earth according to their descent from the 
three sons of Noah, viz., Shem, Ham, and Japhet—Shem being 
described as the ancestor of the Semitic race, Ham as the 
father of the Egyptians and Africans, and Japhet as the 
progenitor of the inhabitants of Asia Minor and Europe. But 
we have already observed that language is the only safe 
criterion in classifying the different branches of the human 
family, and the study of languages, as it advances, points 
more and more distinctly to one common stock of human 
beings—all physiological differences of races being, in all pro¬ 
bability, the result of accident and of outward circumstances. 

4. The character and the institutions, social and political, 
of the Asiatic nations have, on the whole, undergone very 
few changes, and their present condition is not very different 
from what it was thousands of years ago. All of them reached 
a certain degree of civilisation, and it cannot be denied that 
in some instances very great progress was made, but none of 
them ever advanced beyond a certain point, at which they 
either remained stationary, or from which they sank back 
into a state of semi-barbarism. The causes of this phenome¬ 
non are found partly in the climate of southern Asia, where 
the luxurious productiveness of nature supports man without 
much exertion on his part, and where the easy mode of life 
allowed him to sink into a state of indolence and apathy, which 
proved to be the greatest obstacle to a steady and progres¬ 
sive development. Other causes may be found in the social 
and political relations of the eastern nations, some of which 
may be traced again to climatic influences. 

5. Ever since the beginning of the human race, or at 
least so far as we can trace its history, the strong has always 
subdued the weak, the rich has oppressed the poor, and the 
cunning has cheated the simple. He who had the power, 
claimed the right to rule over the weaker as his subjects or his 
slaves; and this state of inequality descended from father to 


14 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


son, and from generation to generation; it was regarded even 
by great philosophers as the natural and legitimate state of 
things. Women, being the weaker sex, were treated in Asia 
only as the means of gratifying the passions, and promoting the 
comforts of men; the wife, in her relation to her husband, 
was no more than a servant; and the natural consequence 
was, that a man took to himself as many such servants as 
he was able to maintain. Polygamy was the natural off¬ 
shoot of such a degraded view of the matrimonial relation, in 
which the husband considered himself to have many rights and 
few duties. This evil which has existed in Asia from time 
immemorial, and still degrades both sexes in eastern countries, 
renders a family life similar to that of Europe an impossibi¬ 
lity ; it destroys the natural relation between parent and 
child, and causes that between husband and wife to be almost 
the same as between a master and his slave, which debases 
both. 

6. As a state is only an extended family, it is but natural 
to expect, in the larger community, vices and virtues ana¬ 
logous to those prevailing in the family. Despotism, there¬ 
fore, is the form of government which we have to look for in 
the East; but it may be asserted in general, that the des¬ 
potism exercised by the head of a state is of a more unmiti¬ 
gated character than that practised by the head of a family; 
for in the latter the members come into closer and more fre¬ 
quent contact, both with one another and with the head, and 
the obedience and kind offices of the one party cannot fail to 
draw forth gratitude and affection from the other. In the state, 
the despot, living in haughty seclusion from his subjects, 
stands to them in no relation that might develop his better 
feelings. Despotism, which, during the historical periods ol 
Eastern history, is the established form of government, seems 
nevertheless not to have been the original one, which must 
rather have contained elements of both liberty and servitude. 


FORMS OF GOVERNMENT. 


15 


The earliest form of government in Asia appears to have been 
the patriarchal, in which the head of a family, or of an aggre¬ 
gate of families, that is, a tribe, exercised the sovereign power. 
Such a community, proud of its real or imaginary ancestor or 
founder, of its deeds of valour, and other distinctions, might 
be either extremely exclusive, or might admit strangers to 
the same rights and privileges as those enjoyed by the men 
boasting one common origin. This form of government is 
generally preserved longest among a nomadic tride. Such a 
people at first scarcely shows any distinction among the parts 
of which it is composed. A priestly class may, in some 
instances, begin to separate itself from the rest; but the head 
and centre of the whole nation is always the chief who has 
succeeded to those rights and distinctions which, in the be¬ 
lief of all, belonged to their first progenitor by the law of 
nature. Their wandering mode of life renders it necessary 
for the nation to be always ready for war, either to repel ag¬ 
gression, or to conquer new pastures for their herds and flocks. 
The personal contact of the patriarchal ruler with his subjects 
softens his relation to them in a similar manner as that sub¬ 
sisting in a family between the head and the members. A 
change takes place, when different tribes join together under 
one chief, and this change is most striking when a nomadic 
tribe succeeds in subduing an agricultural people with fixed 
habitations. In this case the conquered are treated at first 
in a very different way from the conquerors : the chief treats 
them as slaves belonging to him by the right of conquest. 
If the nomadic tribe settle in the conquered country, and 
amalgamate with the original inhabitants, the chief, in the 
course of time, assumes the same power and authority over 
them as over the subject people: both become slaves, and 
despotism is complete. As the possession of unlimited power, 
pride, and self-indulgence, are little calculated to improve and 
ennoble man, despotism generally proceeds from bad to worse. 


16 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


The Asiatic nations have never risen to the idea of political 
freedom: the man who is a despot in his domestic circle 
submits with abject servility to the commands and caprices 
of those whom circumstances have placed above him. 

7. Among all the more important nations of the East, we 
find a more or less complete system of castes, whereby the 
descendants are bound to follow the same pursuits as their 
parents. States based upon the system of castes, are pro¬ 
bably of later origin than patriarchal states, for it may be as¬ 
sumed that the establishment of castes is always the result of 
conquest. The classes distinguished for their knowledge, for 
their military prowess, or for wealth, subduing others, natu¬ 
rally assume higher powers, and contrive to preserve them 
for their descendants. Knowledge and valour naturally gain 
the ascendancy over a nation in its first stage of development, 
and hence the castes of priests and warriors everywhere ap¬ 
pear as the first and most powerful. Wisdom and knowledge 
are regarded as gifts vouchsafed by the Deity to his ministers 
alone; and priests accordingly are the teachers and advisers 
not only of the people, but also of the rulers, over whom their 
influence is often so great as to eclipse the power of the mili¬ 
tary chief—his claims being based on no higher authority 
than that of the sword. The military caste, from which the 
ruler is generally taken, forms a kind of nobility, which, 
like the knights of the middle ages, keeps the rest of the 
population in subjection by the constant practice and exercise 
in arms; they secure to their descendants the same rights 
and privileges by early training and habit. The other castes 
are always found subordinate to these two, though among 
them also there is a gradation of rank and dignity. It may 
appear strange and unnatural to us to compel a son to follow 
the same trade or profession as his father, as talent and in¬ 
clination seem indispensable to success; but we must not over¬ 
look the important influence of early training and habit, which, 


CHINA. 


17 


I 

even in our own age and country, generally induce the sons 
. of agriculturists to follow the occupation of their fathers. In 
the early ages of the world, the institution of castes may even 
have been very beneficial; but when it becomes an obstacle 
to the free development of individual energy, its influence is 
of a paralysing nature; and if it remains unreformed, the 
state itself decays, or continues a monotonous existence, with¬ 
out progress and without improvement. Even while in its 
highest prosperity, the form of government in such a state is 
despotic—either the priests exercising an undue influence, or 
the military chief ruling unchecked, or at least controlled only 
by priestly authority. 

Such are the principal forms of government we meet with 
in the south and east of Asia, and it is only in the western 
parts, as we approach nearer to Europe, that we find any mo¬ 
difications forming a kind of transition to the freer institu¬ 
tions of European life. 


CHAPTER II. 

CHINA. 

1. China, which forms a vast empire in the east of Asia, 
consists of the slopes or terraces from the central highlands 
of Asia, and *of extensive and fertile lowlands traversed by 
large rivers and intersected by an immense number of canals. 
Its inhabitants, belonging to the Mongol race, differ from 
Europeans more widely than any other civilised nation. They 
are the only branch of the Mongols that has attained any con¬ 
siderable degree of civilisation, but their progress appears to 
have been checked thousands of years ago, and ever since that 
time the nation has been stationary, so that it can scarcely be 

c 




18 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


said to have any history at all. Even the repeated conquests 
of the country by foreign invaders from the highlands of Asia 
have produced no changes, for the conquerors being less civilised 
than the conquered, generally adopted the manners, laws, and 
language of the conquered Chinese. This stationary charac¬ 
ter of the nation is regarded in China as the only true basis 
of happiness and civil order, and is for this reason enforced 
by its rulers. What has once been established must for ever 
remain unaltered, and all education consists in a mere mecha¬ 
nical training to move within certain fixed forms; and to do 
nothing but what somebody else has done before, is considered 
as a sign of the most consummate wisdom. The mariner’s 
compass, gunpowder, and even a kind of printing, were in¬ 
vented by the Chinese at a remote period; but while in Euro¬ 
pean countries these things have been the means of gigantic 
progress and reforms, the Chinese have never employed them 
to any great practical purpose, nor have they carried them 
beyond certain rude and clumsy beginnings. The future 
destiny of China, therefore, must be a continuance of its stag¬ 
nation, unless the nation be shaken by violent convulsions out 
of its lethargic condition. 

2. The language of the Chinese is as peculiar as the people 
themselves. Its whole vocabulary consists of about four hundred 
and fifty monosyllabic words, which, being pronounced with dif¬ 
ferent intonations or accents, produce about one thousand two 
hundred and three different words. The consequence of this 
poverty of the language is, that many words, though pronounced 
in the same way, have very different meanings, which, in some 
instances, are not fewer than thirty or forty. The inconveniences 
and misunderstandings arising from such a language may easily 
be imagined. The Chinese language has in reality no gram¬ 
mar at all, for declensions and conjugations, and all the variety 
of other changes, and the numberless prefixes and suffixes by 
which, in other languages so many relations are expressed, are 


emu a. 


19 


entirely unknown, and the relations of words to one another are 
indicated by their position alone. The writing of the Chinese 
is not alphabetic, but consists of compound and strangely 
formed characters or signs representing words, and their vast 
number forms a singular contrast with the poverty of the 
spoken language, for the Chinese dictionaries contain between 
three and four thousand different signs or symbols of this 
kind. There can be no doubt that originally these signs 
were of a hieroglyphic or pictorial character, and that in the 
course of time they were so much altered as to become in the 
end mere conventional symbols. Only very few of these signs 
represent sounds or syllables. 

3. This stiffness and want of elasticity in their language 
have produced corresponding effects upon the minds of the 
Chinese, and have also stamped their character upon their 
philosophy and religion. The ancient religion of the Chinese 
—we are not speaking here of Buddhism, which was imported 
at a later period from abroad—was extremely poor and 
meagre, and it is said that their language does not even 
contain a word or symbol for a spiritual or divine being. 
Confucius (properly Kong-fu-tse), their celebrated philosopher, 
who lived about the year b. c. 500, as well as his disciples 
and followers, never alluded to the existence of a spiritual 
being as the creator and ruler of the universe, whence Confu¬ 
cianism is little better than Atheism. In his time, it is said, 
all the relations of social and civil order were in a state of 
utter dissolution, and he, by inculcating a strict and pure 
system of ethics, endeavoured to restore the morality and hap¬ 
piness of former ages. To this great object he devoted all 
the energies of his life; but he did not live to see the fruits 
of his labours, for it was not till after his death that his coun¬ 
trymen, appreciating his doctrines, really commenced the work 
of reform, and made his ethical system the soul of their 
social and political life. This tradition seems to be perfectly 


20 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


correct, and is borne out even by tbe present condition of the 
Chinese people. The moral code of Confucius teaches the 
most absolute submission of children to the will of their parents, 
of wives to that of their husbands, and of the whole nation to 
that of its rulers. The idea of freedom or of a self-determin¬ 
ing will is not recognised at all. 

4. But notwithstanding this total absence of freedom 
and the paralysing influence of the immutable adherence to 
established forms and doctrines, there has been, within a 
limited sphere, a considerable amount of intellectual activity. 
The literature of the Chinese is rich, and the industry of their 
learned men and scholars ought not to* be undervalued, 
although the intellectual interests of their country have not 
been much advanced by them. Poetry in particular, in which 
the feelings of men have found an outlet even among nations 
far less favourably circumstanced than the Chinese, has been 
cultivated to a considerable extent. The novels produced 
by the Chinese are distinguished by a certain refinement, 
but are only pictures of their own life, which strictly moves 
in certain prescribed forms. Their lyric poetry is freer and 
more natural. A collection of the best literary productions 
is ascribed to Confucius ; it is related that when he com¬ 
menced the work of reforming his countrymen, he collected 
in six books every thing that had been written in earlier 
ages, and seemed to him suited to assist him in his endea¬ 
vours. One of these books, w r hich bear the name of Kings, 
is lost, but the remaining five are to this day regarded by the 
Chinese as the canonical and sacred books of their literature. 
One of them, called Y-king, contains a kind of symbolic phi¬ 
losophy ; the Chu-king and Tcheu-tsieou treat of historical 
and political subjects; the Li-king of customs and ceremonies, 
and the Chi-ldng, lastly, forms a collection of three hundred and 
eleven national songs, which Confucius is said to have selected 
out of three thousand. In the third century before Christ 


CHINA. 


21 


nearly all the literary treasures of the Chinese were destroyed 
by fire, whence the authenticity of those books may fairly be 
questioned, though the Chi-king seems to be genuine, as lyric 
poems can be most easily retained and propagated by oral 
tradition. These poems, in the opinion of those conversant 
with the Chinese language, are full of grace and beauty, and 
are mostly expressive of grief and sorrow, as if they had been 
composed at a time when the natural feelings of the nation 
began to perceive the artificial restraint that was beginning to 
be imposed upon them. 

5. The historical literature of China, so far as antiquity is 
concerned, is extremely meagre, and cannot be regarded as con- 
taining trustworthy records. The Greek and Roman writers 
furnish us with no information whatever, unless we suppose, as 
some have done, that the Seres, the silk merchants of the ancient 
world, are the Chinese. Whatever we know, therefore, about 
ancient China is derived from native sources, and from the reports 
of missionaries and travellers—the former of which can scarcely 
be called authentic, while the latter are often scanty and incom¬ 
plete; for the Chinese have at all times been extremely vigilant 
in excluding from their country all foreigners, who might have 
gathered information, and communicated it to Europeans. 
The Chinese traditions, tracing the history of the empire back 
many thousands of years before the Christian era, state that 
their ancestors came into the country from the mountains in 
the north-west, and, finding it occupied by barbarous tribes, 
gradually extirpated or subdued them ; and those whose lives 
were spared adopted the customs and language of the con¬ 
querors, and united with them as one nation. But it is 
admitted on all hands that the earliest periods of Chinese 
history are quite fabulous; and the most ancient dynasty of 
Chinese sovereigns that may be looked upon as historical, is 
that of Hia, which ascended the throne about the year b. c. 
2207. As the art of writing is unquestionably very ancient 


22 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


in China, it is not impossible that written records of that 
remote period may have been preserved; but, in consequence 
of the general destruction of Chinese literature, which, as 
already mentioned, took place in the third century before 
Christ, the historical annals of China which have come down 
to our time cannot be accepted as trustworthy records. The 
account of this general catastrophe of Chinese literature runs 
as follows :—Under the third dynasty, called Cheu, the great 
chiefs in the various parts of the empire made themselves 
almost independent; they recognised the supremacy of the 
emperor scarcely more than nominally, and threw the empire 
into a complete state of anarchy by the incessant wars among 
themselves. One of the chiefs, of the house of Zin, put an 
end to this state of things by subduing all his rivals, and 
usurping the imperial throne itself. The most powerful ruler 
of this (the fourth) dynasty was Shi-hoang-ti, who, in order 
to crush all attempts of the conquered chiefs to recover their 
dominions, and to deprive them of all documentary evidence 
by which they might establish their claims, ordered all literary 
productions of the preceding dynasties to be burned. After 
the death of Shi-hoang-ti, however, about b. c. 200, the house 
of Zin perished as rapidly as it had risen, and was succeeded 
by the dynasty of Han, which, not deeming a knowdedge of 
the past dangerous to its own existence, ordered the books to 
be restored. Careful inquiries were made after any remains 
which might have escaped destruction, and a number of frag¬ 
ments were brought together. But the most important source 
is said to have been the memory of an old man, who pretended 
to know by heart all the ancient annals of the empire, and 
from whose dictation they were restored. Now, even admitting 
that originally the written records went back as far as the 
twenty-third century b. c., we can hardly conceive that a 
nation’s history restored in this manner should be authentic 
and complete. Hence the most competent Chinese historians 


CHINA. 


23 


assert tliat the commencement of really trustworthy accounts 
cannot be dated farther back than the eighth century before 
the Christian era. But, even subsequent to this latter epoch, 
Chinese history is by no means like what we call history in 
western Asia or Europe, for we have absolutely nothing but 
records of external events, consisting of rebellions, usurpations, 
and changes of dynasties, the people itself being treated as an 
inert mass, which never comes into consideration. Such a his¬ 
tory, which scarcely deserves the name, presents nothing that is 
either pleasing or instructive; and those who wish to study 
it must be referred to the works specially devoted to the elu¬ 
cidation of Chinese history. 

6. The stationary character of the Chinese nation is mainly 
owing to three causes :—1. The obstinacy with which the people 
cling to their ancient habits and customs, and repel every 
attempt at change or reform; 2. The fact that the empire is 
separated from the rest of the world by mountains and seas— 
a separation which the Chinese themselves have strengthened 
by the construction of the celebrated wall, which runs for about 
fifteen hundred miles along the northern frontier of China. 
It extends over mountains, some of which are five thousand feet 
in height, and runs across rivers and valleys. Its average 
height is twenty feet, and its breadth at the base twenty-five, 
and at the top fifteen. The object of this immense rampart 
was to protect the empire against the incursions of the Tar¬ 
tars. This end, however, was not always attained, and even 
the imperial family at present reigning in China is of Man- 
choo Tartar origin, and has been on the throne for upwards 
of two centuries. 3. The absolute power of the emperor, 
who is regarded as the representative of God upon earth, 
and is styled u the Son of Heaven.” He and his aris¬ 
tocracy of learned men, called Mandarins, treat the great 
body of the people as imbecile children, and by every means 
prevent their becoming acquainted with the events that are 


24 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


going on in tlie world around them. The experiences of 
foreign nations, therefore, are shut out from the Chinese, and 
notwithstanding their astonishing skill in some of the mecha¬ 
nical arts and manufactures, they have in general always been 
far behind the western nations. Their form of government is 
a kind of patriarchal despotism. Agriculture, the most ancient 
and most honoured occupation, is under the special patronage 
of the emperor, who at a stated period in every year performs 
the ceremony of ploughing a few furrows; and the empress 
encourages the manufacture of silk, by planting every year 
with her own hands a few mulberry trees. Events are going 
on at this moment within the celestial empire, which may pos¬ 
sibly break the fetters that have compelled the Chinese for 
thousands of years to walk like children in leading strings, 
and throw down the barriers which have so long isolated their 
country from the rest of the world, and prevented it from 
accepting a healthier civilisation. 


CHAPTER III. 

INDIA. 

1. India, the easternmost country of Asia known to the 
ancients, is bounded on the north by the gigantic chain of the 
Himalaya mountains, on the south of which it extends in the 
form of two peninsulas. The western is now called Hin- 
dostan, and the eastern .Further India, or sometimes India 
beyond the Ganges. The western peninsula is divided into 
two almost equal parts by a range of mountains running from 
east to west. The part on the north of these mountains is 
the real continental Hindostan, and that on the south was 
formerly called Deccan. The central part of the northern 



INB3A. 


25 


division contains extensive low lands, which are richly watered 
by the great rivers Indus and Ganges, and their numerous 
tributaries. The eastern coast of the peninsula is mostly flat, 
while the northern and western parts are mountainous, and in 
some districts form high table-lands. This great variety in 
the aspect of the country, in its elevations and depressions, 
produces the greatest climatic differences ; for while the plains 
and valleys are in every respect tropical countries, and while 
the mountainous parts are during the greater portion of the 
year free from excessive heat, the highest mountains display 
the phenomena of the polar regions, and the lower parts have 
all the characteristics of the temperate zones. Hence India 
within its whole extent, from the Himalaya mountains to its 
southernmost points, presents a variety of climate and produc¬ 
tions, such as no other country in the world can boast of. 

2. The variety of the inhabitants of India is almost equally 
great. We call the people of India Indians or Hindoos—a 
name which the Greeks derived from the Persians, and which 
has thence passed into modern languages ; hut the ancient 
native appellation was Arya, that is “ honourable men,” the 
name assumed by the three higher castes of Indians, to dis¬ 
tinguish themselves, as the observers of the sacred laws, from 
the Mlekha, that is, barbarians, or despisers of the law. Al¬ 
though the complexion of the higher Indian castes is darker 
than that of their northern neighbours, still they belong to the 
same Caucasian race, and form the easternmost branch of the 
great Indo-Germanic family of nations. Their neighbours in 
the north-west are nearest akin to the Arya in language, and in 
fact called themselves by the same name. This strong re¬ 
semblance between the two nations may be either purely 
geographical, as they inhabit contiguous countries, or it is a 
proof that their separation from each other is more recent than 
that of the other branches of the same stock. As all of them 
must have had one common origin and country, the question 


26 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


presents itself, whether Hindostan itself can have been that 
country. It seems clear that their common home must have 
been a country from which they could spread in different 
directions, for which Hindostan was ill suited; but it is both 
intimated by tradition, and also highly probable in itself, that 
the original country of the Indo-Germanic race was the moun¬ 
tainous district in the north and north-west of India. From 
that district the Indians seem to have migrated southward 
through the Punjaub, and thus to have spread over the penin¬ 
sula, while other branches moved to the north and west. 
These immigrants, no doubt, found an* earlier race established 
in India, and remnants of such a race may still be traced in 
the southern parts. The physiognomy of these latter resembles 
that of the Caucasian race, but their complexion is darker, 
and their language is altogether different. Hence it may be 
assumed that they belong to another stock of nations; they 
possess some features resembling those of the negroes of 
Africa. 

3. This invading race of the Ary a, being possessed of great 
natural talents and a fine mental organisation, has developed 
a very remarkable and peculiar civilisation, which, long before 
Greece reached its intellectual supremacy, displayed a variety, 
extent, and refinement, never attained, either before or after, 
by any other Asiatic nation. Their intellectual activity 
was not limited in its effects and influences to India itself, but 
even China, otherwise so impatient and jealous of foreign 
influence, received the religion of the majority of its inhabitants 
from India. The Indians never appear as conquerors, nor do 
we hear of any great emigrations, by which Indian civilisation 
might have been diffused over other countries; but there are 
nevertheless traces of Indian colonies in the eastern parts of 
Asia, and Indian settlers are said to have introduced into the 
island of Java their religion, their laws, manners, arts, and 
sciences. Notwithstanding all this, it must be owned that 


COMMERCE OF INDIA. 


27 


tlie influence exercised by India upon the other Asiatic nations 
has been comparatively small. In regard to commerce, how¬ 
ever, India occupies the foremost rank among the eastern 
nations—not that Indian merchants travelled much to foreign 
countries to dispose of their goods, but, as a general rule, the 
merchants from western Asia fetched the products of India, and 
sold them among their own countrymen, or among Europeans. 
The commerce of the Indians consisted almost exclusively in 
exporting the treasures in which their country abounded, or which 
their own industry produced. The wealth and productiveness 
of the country allowed very little scope for importation from 
abroad. What was obtained from India was not so much a 
supply of the actual necessaries of life, as of objects of splendour 
and luxury, such as pearls, precious stones, ivory, cotton and 
silk stuffs, spices, and incense. As regards silk, the general 
opinion is that it was only woven in India, the material itself 
being imported from China; but there are good reasons for 
assuming that the breeding of the silk-worm is very ancient in 
India, and that it was introduced there from China at a very 
remote period. Our accounts of the ancient commerce of India 
are very fragmentary and obscure, because the goods exported 
from it had to pass through many hands before they reached the 
nations of western Asia and Europe ; and the most extravagant 
notions became current in western countries of the extraordi¬ 
nary wealth of India. Our present knowledge of the ancient 
language of India has somewhat dispelled these notions, and 
furnished more correct information about Indian commerce. 
Goods exported from a country generally carry their native 
appellations with them, and the names of very many articles, 
originally brought from India, still retain their Indian names, 
which have been adopted into the languages of Europe, for 
instance, tin, pepper, opal, emerald, and many others. 

4. Formerly our information about ancient India was de¬ 
rived solely from the Greeks, who, although the country was 


28 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


not unknown to them before, and was even connected with 
some of thc-ir mythical legends, yet did not possess any au¬ 
thentic information about it until the time of Alexander the 
Great, who conquered a portion of it, and made his coun¬ 
trymen and the inquisitive Greeks acquainted with the land, 
about which, until then, only vague and fabulous reports had 
been current in the west. But as the occupation of India by 
the Grseco-Macedonians was not of long duration, the infor¬ 
mation derivable from Greek writers is very scanty and de¬ 
fective, when compared with that which has been gained 
within the last sixty or seventy years from the study of the 
native literature of India, and from a comparison of its 
language with those of the principal nations of Europe, the 
radical identity of which was unknown until, towards the 
end of last century, the English, and especially Sir W. 
Jones, directed the attention of the learned to it. The 
language, poetry, and philosophy of the ancient Indians have 
since that time been subjects of deep and extensive study, 
and have laid open to us treasures of an intellectual activity 
in India, of which previously no one had any idea. In 
addition to these literary remains, temples, sculptures, ruins 
of cities, inscriptions, coins, and other monuments of very 
ancient date, enable us to form tolerably correct notions of 
what ancient India once was. A comparison of what we 
know of modern India with what has been transmitted to us 
by the ancient Greeks, seems to show, that in the days of 
Alexander the Great, it was nearly in the same condition in 
which it was found in modern times by the first Europeans 
who visited the country. Hence it is clear that the Indians, 
though superior in intellect and in the variety and depth of 
their culture, yet, like other Asiatic nations, were checked in 
their career at a certain point, beyond which, on the whole, 
they did not advance. 

5. But the historical information derived from the writ- 


HISTORICAL AUTHORITIES. 


29 


ings of the Indians themselves is likewise very unsatisfactory; 
for they had scarcely any historical literature at all, and 
in regard to chronology there are scarcely even two or three 
points in their ancient history that can be fixed with any pre¬ 
cision. Their traditions were embodied in epic poems, which, 
though we must suppose them to have some historical basis, 
yet are so full of fanciful and fantastic occurrences, that it is 
far more difficult to discover the historical kernel than in the 
epic poetry of any other nation. Those poems, moreover, have 
not come down to us in their original form, but with nume¬ 
rous alterations and interpolations. The period of epic poetry 
was not followed in India, as it was in Greece, by one of 
plain historical narrative, which in fact appears to have had 
no interest for the imaginative and fanciful Indian. All 
the historical information transmitted to us by the Indians 
themselves is limited to a few dry lists of kings, and even 
these are anything but authentic. They carry us back as 
far as the fourteenth century before Christ, whence we may 
assume, that that time forms a kind of beginning of the 
historical period. The appearance of Alexander in India 
is interesting, for his historians mention the names of Indian 
rulers whose chronology is thereby fixed beyond all doubt. 
About b.c. 56, we hear of a mighty Indian king called Vicra- 
maditya, whose victory over the Sacae forms an era which was 
adopted by the Indians themselves. But these few events 
neither throw any great light upon the internal relations of 
India, nor serve as a thread for the subsequent history. 
The introduction of Buddhism fortunately forms another 
chronological era, about which there is no doubt; but we 
must defer our account of it until we come to discuss the 
religion of the Indians. Under these circumstances, our his¬ 
torical knowledge is, on the whole, limited to the social, poli¬ 
tical, and religious condition of the couptry, though even here 
we have no guides to show us the modes of development. 


30 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


All we can say is, that, in the time of Alexander, Indian 
civilisation had reached a high state of perfection, that this 
development had commenced about a thousand years before 
him, and that it continued to bear good fruit for about a thou¬ 
sand years longer, but that then it began to decay. 

6. In the time of Alexander the Great, we find India 
broken up into a number of larger and smaller principalities, 
which were quite independent of one another ; and it appears 
that, previously to its conquest by foreign invaders, it was 
never united as one empire. The system of castes has at all 
times been the foundation of all the political and social insti¬ 
tutions of India, and nowhere is it so deeply rooted in the 
minds of the people, and nowhere, perhaps, has it been so 
fully developed ; for the Indians not only regard the separa¬ 
tion into castes as the grand distinction between themselves 
and the Mlekhas, but trace its origin to the very creation of 
the human race. The institution itself is founded in India, 
as everywhere else, upon conquest. Throughout India the 
three higher castes are distinguished to this day from the 
lower ones by a lighter complexion and handsomer features, 
and these higher castes are none other than the Arya, who, as 
we have already mentioned, at a remote period invaded and 
conquered India from the north-west. The four chief castes 
of the Indians are—1. The priests or Brahmins; 2. The 
warriors or Kshatriyas ; 3. The tradesmen or A 7 aisyas ; and 4. 
The servants or Sudras. Mythology describes the Brahmins 
as proceeding from the mouth of the supreme god Brahma, 
the warriors as having sprung from his arms, the tradesmen as 
having arisen out of his loins, and the servants from his feet. 

7. The Brahmins have always been the first and most 
influential caste, and were not only the founders of the intel¬ 
lectual culture and peculiarities of the Indians, but always 
concentrated in their own body all the intellectual life of the 
nation. Whatever was opposed to them and their institutions 


THE INDIAN CASTES. 


31 


was cast out, or, if successful in maintaining itself, contri¬ 
buted to the decay of the national character. The law al¬ 
ways demanded of the Brahmins to lead a pure and holy life, 
often to pray and fast, to kill no living being, to take no ani¬ 
mal food except what came from sacrifices, to devote them¬ 
selves to the service of the gods, scrupulously to observe a 
vast number of ceremonies, to study the sacred books, and 
to expound their contents to the members of the second and 
third castes. In compensation for these numerous and weari¬ 
some duties, they enjoyed many and great privileges, and the 
other castes were enjoined to show them the profoundest reve¬ 
rence and submission* The person of a Brahmin was regarded 
as sacred and inviolable, and even if he were convicted of a 
great crime, he could not be put to death, and all that the 
king would be entitled to do in such a case would be to 
banish him from his dominions. The lands of the Brahmins 
were exempt from taxes. Their priestly character alone would 
have secured to them a high position in the state; but as 
they were at the same time regarded as the sole depositaries of 
all human wisdom, they were also the recognised teachers, 
physicians, and lawyers of the nation, and the advisers and 
ministers of the kings. 

8. The kings were and still are chosen solely from the 
military caste or the Kshatriyas, and although they were re¬ 
garded as the chiefs of the nation, yet they ranked below the 
Brahmins, who would have thought it degrading to them¬ 
selves to give a daughter in marriage to a king, or even to 
dine with him at the same table. The Brahmins being the 
framers of the law, prescribed to the kings their duties, and 
the manner in which they had to govern their dominions, en¬ 
joining them to take their highest officers and councillors from 
among the Brahmins. The king is directed to select from 
this caste the wisest man, to entrust to him the most im¬ 
portant state business, and to employ him in carrying into 


32 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


effect all measures of consequence. These regulations show 
that the fundamental principle of the Indian state was of a 
theocratic nature. Rulers of great energy and power would 
sometimes break through these priestly restraints, but they 
never produced any permanent change, and Brahminism has 
for thousands of years been the foundation of all the political 
institutions of India. The power of the kings, however, was 
nevertheless very great, for they were regarded as the sole 
proprietors of the soil, and the cultivators occupied the land 
only as tenants, who had to pay a certain proportion of the 
produce to the king. But his government interfered very 
little in local matters, so that each town or village formed 
to some extent an independent community. 

9. The two castes of priests and soldiers were indeed 
separated from the lower ones by a great interval, but the first 
three are nevertheless treated as belonging to one another, and 
as far superior to the fourth. The first three were styled u the 
regenerate, ” and in consequence of this the Sudras, or fourth 
caste, were forbidden to read the sacred books, or to be 
present when their contents were expounded. These four 
castes themselves, however, were subdivided into a great 
variety of classes, differing in dignity, rights, and privileges, 
which were transmitted by a father to his children, only by 
means of his marrying a woman of the same caste to which 
he himself belonged; and as polygamy is established in India 
as in other Asiatic countries, the degrading position of 
woman is somewhat diminished by the fact of her sharing in 
the rights of her husband. But mixed marriages were never¬ 
theless of frequent occurrence, and as the offspring of such 
marriages were always regarded as deteriorated in some way 
or another, a number of mixed castes were gradually formed, 
which are said to amount to thirty-six, and to each of which 
a special trade or occupation is assigned. The lowest and 
most despised of all the castes were the Chandalas, who are 


i 


THE INDIAN CASTES. 


33 


best known in our days under the name of Pariahs. They 
were not allowed to live in towns or villages, or even in their 
vicinity ; whatever they had touched was regarded as unclean, 
and even to see them was thought to have a polluting effect. 
When they were seen on the high roads while a Brahmin or 
merely his suite was passing, they were hunted and killed 
like wild beasts. The consequence of this was that the 
Pariahs were a sort of wild and filthy race, living by rob¬ 
bery and plunder. They, like some of the other despised 
castes of India, seem in fact to be a distinct race, rather 
than a mere caste, and their condition probably originated 
in conquest, like that of the Helots in Laconia. The moral 
effects of this system of castes, which in modern times has 
lost somewhat of its ancient rigour, are of a most deplor¬ 
able kind ; it has been said that the very idea of humanity 
does not exist among the Indians, and that they know of no 
other duties than those of their castes. But still no fetters 
can be so strong as to prevent the true feeling of humanity from 
bursting forth occasionally, and Indian poetry in particular 
often presents to us the noblest feelings of human nature in 
all their beauty and loveliness. Even the separation of 
castes was not always observed in practical life with the 
strictness enjoined by law; for if, for example, a Brahmin 
was unable to gain the means of living by the discharge of 
his proper functions, he might serve as a soldier, and carry on 
agriculture or commerce without losing his dignity as a 
Brahmin. Cases of this kind still frequently occur. 

10. Although it is manifest that such institutions as these 
must exercise a paralysing influence upon the development 
of the human mind, still it cannot be denied that there must 
have been a time in Indian history when those institutions 
tended to raise and elevate, if not the whole nation, at least 
certain classes of it. This is most strikingly obvious in the 
literature, the language, and science of the Hindoos. The 

D 


34 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


Sanscrit, their ancient and sacred language, in which their 
greatest works are written, is one of the richest, the most 
euphonious, and the most generally perfect that have ever 
been spoken by man. The most ancient works written in this 
language are the Vedas and the laws of Mann, in which, at the 
same time, we find the earliest form of the Indian religion. In 
them we meet with the idea of one uncreated supreme being, 
existing from all eternity and of himself, comprehending and 
pervading the universe as its soul. From him, who is him¬ 
self incomprehensible and invisible, all visible things have 
emanated; hence the universe is nothing but the unfolding 
of the divine being, who is reflected in the whole as well as in 
every individual creature. This original and simple notion of 
one supreme being was changed in the course of time into poly¬ 
theism, of which in fact traces appear even in the Vedas them¬ 
selves. The stars, the elements, and all the powers of nature 
were conceived as different divine beings that had emanated 
from the one supreme God. Even in the work of creation a 
plurality of gods was believed to have been engaged. Brahma, 
himself created by the first invisible cause, and assisted by the 
Pradshapatis (the lords of creation), called into being all the 
various living creatures. Nature after its creation is con¬ 
ceived to be under the special guardianship of eight spirits or 
gods of secondary rank, among whom Varuna presides over 
the sea, Pavana over the winds, Yama over justice, Loca- 
palas over the world, Indra over the atmosphere, and Surya 
over the sun. Numberless spirits of an inferior order are 
subject to these, and are diffused throughout nature, while the 
divine substance pervades all living beings from Brahma 
down to the lowest animals and plants. Within this endless 
variety of beings the souls of men were believed to migrate, 
entering after the death of man either into beings of a higher 
or a lower order, according to the degree in which they had 
become purified in passing through their previous state of 


ANCIENT .BRAHKINISM. 


35 


existence. This doctrine of the migration of souls, which we 
meet with in other countries also, probably originated in 
India, where it was carried out to its full extent. By way 
of illustration w r e may state that, according to the common 
belief, the soul of a disciple of a Brahmin blaming his master, 
passed, after his death, into the body of an ass; if he calum¬ 
niated his master, into that of a dog; if he robbed him, into 
that of a little worm, and if he envied him, into an insect. 
This belief led the Indians carefully to avoid killing or 
injuring any living being; while, on the other hand, they did 
not scruple to treat a Pariah with inhuman cruelty, because 
his very condition was regarded as a well-deserved punish¬ 
ment for his transgressions during a previous existence. It 
must however not be forgotten that this belief acted as a 
powerful stimulus to strive after moral purity and goodness, 
inasmuch as it created the notion that by self denial, self 
control, a knowledge of the sacred books, and a conscientious 
observance of the rules contained therein, the soul of man 
might return to God, and become worthy of his presence. In 
all these things, however, the object was to make man conform 
to certain mechanical “rules, rather than to make him strive 
after real purity of heart. 

11. A somewhat different phasis of the Indian religion 
appears in the national epics, in which the gods are described 
as having descended to earth, and as taking part in the 
concerns of men. At this stage the gods appear as real 
personifications with definite forms; their images are set up 
in temples and worshipped, and the pure idea of one supreme 
and invisible god reappears under the name of Brahma (of 
the neuter-gender), who manifests himself in three divine 
capacities, bearing the names Brahma (masculine), the creator 
and lord of the universe; Vishnu, the preserver, and Siva, 
the destroyer. Vishnu is said to have come into the world 
in a variety of forms to save it from the influence of evil 


36 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


powers, to punish vice, and to maintain order and justice. 
These numerous incarnations of the god furnish rich materials 
for a strange and fantastic mythology. Siva is conceived as 
destroying all finite things; but as death is only a transition 
to a new form of life, he was also worshipped as the god of 
creative power, whence he is the representative of ever decay¬ 
ing and reviving nature. The number of subordinate divini¬ 
ties also increases, and they assume more definite forms. The 
earth itself is conceived as inhabited by hosts of spirits dwell¬ 
ing in mountains, rivers, brooks, and groves.; animals and 
plants even are worshipped as embodiments of divine powers 
and properties. This vast mythology, which subsequently 
became the popular religion of India, may be gathered from 
the works called Puranas, which occupy a middle character 
between epic and didactic poetry. They seem to be a compi¬ 
lation from earlier poems, and to have been made at the time 
when the Indians began to be divided into sects, that is, at 
the time when the gods of the Trimurti began to be no longer 
regarded as subordinate to the one great original god, called 
Para-Brahma, but when one of the three was himself wor¬ 
shipped as the supreme god. For the sectarian divisions 
consisted in this, that some portion of the people worshipped 
one of the three gods—the Trimurti—more particularly as 
the supreme being, while the two others enjoyed less honour; 
and the priests, with their votaries of one member of the 
Trimurti, persecuted the worshippers of either of the other 
two members with obstinacy and relentless fury. At first 
Brahma seems to have had his separate worshippers, though 
no temples or images were erected to him, for idolatry was 
then still unknown. Afterwards there followed the separate 
worship of Vishnu, and last that of Siva and other gods. In 
the end, the worshippers of Vishnu and Siva gained the uppei 
band, and pure Brahminism was suppressed. 


ORIGIN OF BUDDHISM. 


37 


12. In the sixth century before Christ* a new religion 
arose in India in the midst of Brahminism. It was and still 
is called Buddhism, from Buddha its founder, who came for¬ 
ward as the reformer of Brahminism. The changes which he 
effected, and the struggles to which they gave rise, form a 
most important epoch in the affairs of India. The history 
of this remarkable religious reformer is involved in great 
obscurity, partly because it was written by his disciples in a 
legendary form, with additions and embellishments, and partly 
because, until recently, it was known only from the works of 
non-Indian followers of Buddha, such as the Tibetans, Chinese, 
and Mongols, while the most authentic or Sanscrit authorities 
have scarcely yet been thoroughly examined. These Sanscrit 
works are considerable in number, and are divided into three 
classes, the first of which consists of discourses and conversa¬ 
tions of Buddha; the second of rules of discipline ; and the 
third of metaphysical speculations. According to the com¬ 
mon legends about the origin of Buddha, his real name 
was Sakyamuni or Gautama. He was the son of a power¬ 
ful prince, and the most handsome of all men. Even at his 
birth he was surrounded by spirits, who continued to watch 
over him throughout his life. The fourfold miseries of man¬ 
kind, viz., the pains of child-birth, disease, old age, and death, 
affected and saddened him so much, that he resolved to re¬ 
nounce all the pomp and luxury of his high station, and to 
lead the life of a humble hermit. After having spent a 
period of six years in this way, he returned among men, and 
began to preach to them the necessity of despising the plea¬ 
sures of this world, and of subduing every selfish feeling. He 
himself practised these virtues to such a degree, that he be¬ 
came a superior being—Buddha, that is, an immortal. As 

* The Cingalese chronology assigns the origin of Buddhism to the 
year b. c. 525, and others to b. c. 543, while the Chinese place it in 
b. c. 950. 


33 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


such, he was believed, after his earthly death, to rule over the 
world for a period of five thousand years, at the expiration ot 
which he was to be succeeded by another Buddha, as he him¬ 
self had been preceded by four or six other Buddhas. The 
saints who by their merits ranked nearest to Buddha himself, 
and who might become his successors, were called Bodhisattvas. 
According to this doctrine, then, the highest power in the 
spiritual, as well as the material world, belongs to deified 
men, and most of the Buddhists (for this religion is likewise 
divided into several sects) do not recognise one .eternal divine 
creator and ruler of the world, but believe that all things 
have come, and are still coming into existence, by some in¬ 
scrutable law of necessity, and by an unceasing process of 
change. Only one of these sects worships one supreme god, 
under the name of Adi-Buddha. But the non-existence of 
such a being had been asserted even before the time of Saky- 
amuni by certain Indian philosophers, from whom he appears 
to have borrowed the idea. He did not indeed impugn the 
existence of Brahma and the numerous other divinities, but 
he taught that the power of Buddha was greater than theirs. 
In other respects he retained the doctrines of Braliminism, as, 
for instance, that about the migration of souls. Rewards and 
punishments, according to him, were not eternal; but he 
taught that the man raised by his virtues to the rank of a 
god, as well as the condemned, was subject to an immutable 
law of change, and that both must return to this earth to pass 
through fresh trials and a fresh succession of changes. The 
highest happiness, in his opinion, was to escape from this 
eternal change of coming into being and dying ; whence he 
held out to the faithful and the good the hope that in the 
end they would become a Nirwana, that is, that they would 
enter a state of almost entire annihilation. This state of 
supreme happiness is conceived differently by the different 
sects of Buddhists, but iu the main idea all agree. 


DEVELOPMENT OF BUDDHISM. 


39 


13. The objects which Sakyamuni himself had in view 
were far removed from those metaphysical speculations on 
which, at a later time, his followers became divided into sects. 
His own* doctrines, though intimately connected with his 
philosophical views, were essentially practical, for he main¬ 
tained that there were six cardinal virtues, by means of 
which man might attain the condition of Nirwana, viz., alms¬ 
giving, pure morality, knowledge, energy in action, patience, 
and goodwill towards his fellow-men. The fundamental 
principle of Buddhism, therefore, is essentially of an ethical 
nature, and the advantages which such a system, notwith¬ 
standing its atheistical character, seemed to afford, were so 
great, that it could not but attract great attention at a time 
when Brahminism, though still intellectually at its height, 
had sunk very low in a moral point of view. Keligion, in 
the hands of the Brahmins, had become a mere mechanical 
observance of ill-understood ceremonies, for which Sakyamuni 
wished to substitute a truly pious life ; at the same time he 
endeavoured to put an end to the haughty and domineering 
spirit of the priests. He accordingly denied the unconditional 
authority of the Vedas, and it was formerly believed that he 
even condemned the whole system of castes; but although this 
latter belief is erroneous, still it is evident that, a pious and 
virtuous life being made the sole condition of eternal happiness, 
virtually the division into castes was not recognised, though 
they continued to exist as corporations of different occupations 
and trades, or as political bodies. The Brahmins alone, as a 
privileged class, were not only not recognised, but vehemently 
opposed. This open rupture between the old and new religion, 
however, was not produced at once, for Sakyamuni himself 
did not aim at destroying what he found, but only wanted to 
bring about a peaceful reform within the established religion, 
and to inculcate the necessity of a really pious life. His own 
personal influence, his discourses, and his austerity produced a 


40 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


great effect, and disciples gathered around him from all 
classes, even from the Brahminical caste. Afterwards, how¬ 
ever, the Brahmins began to persecute the ascetic Buddhists, 
at first from envy and jealousy, and afterwards from a fear 
lest the new sect should ultimately overthrow all the reli¬ 
gious and political institutions of the country. But the greater 
the opposition, the greater was the success of the new reli¬ 
gion; the lower castes in particular, feeling themselves elevated 
by the new doctrines, seized with eagerness the opportunity 
of getting rid of fetters which had hitherto constrained them ; 
and the teaching, addressed as it was to all the people 
without distinction, produced astonishing effects. The Sudras 
felt called upon to embrace the new doctrines, and to be¬ 
come members of the community of saints; and even many 
of the Kshatriyas, impatient of the priestly arrogance of the 
Brahmins, adopted them. In the end, kings also joined 
the reformers, and gave a character to the new religion. 
About the middle of the third century before Christ, we meet 
with a king A<joka, a grandson of Chandragupta, who ruled 
over nearly the whole of India, and was devotedly attached 
to the doctrines of Buddhism, without, however, persecuting 
the still numerous adherents of Brahminism. He not only 
erected numerous Buddha temples, but strove himself to live 
entirely in accordance with the ethical precepts of the new 
religion, practising the virtues of general benevolence and kind¬ 
ness to all men. He abolished capital punishment throughout 
his extensive empire, erected everywhere hospitals for the sick, 
and made roads shaded by trees and provided with wells at 
certain intervals. He not only established and extended 
Buddhism in his own dominions, but even sent missionaries 
into foreign countries. The progress of the new religion 
was thus immense, but very little is known about the struggles 
it had to maintain in India with its great and powerful rival. 
All we know is, that the Brahmins continued to exert them- 


EXTENSION OF BUDDHISM. 


41 


selves in maintaining their own religion, and that, after a few 
centuries, a mighty reaction took place, in which the exas¬ 
perated Brahmins succeeded in rousing their followers to a 
desperate and bloody contest with their opponents. These 
struggles, which appear to have lasted from the third to the 
seventh century of our era, terminated in the defeat of Bud¬ 
dhism, which was almost entirely exterminated in the western 
peninsula. After the expulsion of the Buddhists, however, a 
sect of them called Yainas still maintained itself, rejecting 
the authority of the Vedas, and worshipping deified men. But 
Buddhism had long before spread beyond the borders of 
western India, and had been adopted by numerous other 
Asiatic nations. In the third century before Christ, it was 
introduced into Ceylon, whence it spread over nearly all the 
Indian islands, and over a great part of further India, Tibet, 
and China, in the last of which countries it took root as early 
as the first century after Christ, under the name of the religion 
of Fo or Foe, which is the Chinese name for Buddha. It 
was especially the lower classes among the Chinese that 
eagerly took up the new religion, and to this day Buddhism 
is the religion of the majority of the Chinese people. Alto¬ 
gether, this religion is the most widely-spread in the world, 
extending from the Indus to Japan, and counting about two 
hundred millions of adherents. 

14. The astonishing success of so singular a religious 
system is certainly one of the most remarkable phenomena in 
the history of Asiatic civilisation. It has undergone various 
changes in the countries into which it was introduced, but 
its most essential points everywhere are traceable to its 
Indian origin. Buddhism had at first combated the existence 
of a privileged class of priests, but in its turn it was obliged 
itself, for the purpose of self-preservation, to institute an order 
of priesthood. The elements of it lay in the nature of Bud¬ 
dhism itself, which regarded an ascetic life as the holiest that 


42 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


a man could lead. Sakyamuni himself had raised those of 
his followers who chose an ascetic life, by a kind of consecra¬ 
tion, to the rank of Sramanas, which we may interpret by the 
term “ mendicant friars,” for they were obliged to vow to 
spend their lives in celibacy, and to support themselves solely 
by alms. These Sramanas formed the retinue of Sakyamuni 
as long as he was alive, and even those who lived in the 
wilds and solitudes sometimes gathered around him to listen 
to his discourses. These monks, in the course of time, began 
to congregate in separate buildings, and thus formed convents, 
which, by the liberality of their adherents, acquired great 
wealth, and were placed under strict regulations regarding 
dress, food, the mode of admission, and the like. These 
priests differed essentially from the Brahmins by their ascetic 
mode of life in convents, and by their celibacy. The worship 
of this new religion was at first very simple. Bloody sacri¬ 
fices were unknown, because it was unlawful to kill any living 
being, and because the religion recognised no god to whom sa¬ 
crifices might be offered. Buddha alone was worshipped, and 
that in two ways, divine honours being paid to his images and 
to the remains of his body, the latter of which were preserved 
in eight metal boxes, deposited in as many sacred buildings or 
temples. Buildings containing remains of Buddha himself or 
of distinguished persons who had supported his doctrines, were 
afterwards greatly multiplied. The Brahmins, in a similar 
manner, raised vast monuments over the remains of illustrious 
men, but never paid them any divine honours. Such Bud¬ 
dhist mausoleums are found in great numbers in those coun¬ 
tries where this religion is or once was established, especially 
in Ceylon, where they are called Dagops. In Afghanistan, 
on the north-west of the Indus, many such monuments of 
great interest have been discovered in modem times, and are 
popularly known under the name of Topes. They are 
all built in the form of cupolas with a few small chambers in 


DEGENERACY OF BUDDHISM. 


43 


the interior. Many of them have been opened, and a great 
number of objects of value, offered by pilgrims, have been 
found in them. 

15. Buddhism, though originating in an opposition to 
the abuses of Brahminism, degenerated in the course of time 
into something which is probably far worse than Brahminism. 
Its dogmas have become wild and fantastic, its form of wor¬ 
ship is an empty system of pomps and ceremonies, and its 
ascetic priests are described as forming a most domineering 
hierarchy, so that in all Buddhist countries there exists a most 
marked distinction between the priests and the laity. The 
priests still live in convents, which are at the same time the 
schools for the young, and the greatest veneration is paid to 
them by the people; but they are in their turn bound to 
strict obedience towards their ecclesiastical superiors. No¬ 
where is the Buddhist hierarchy so fully and so perfectly 
organised as in Tibet, where nearly half the population con¬ 
sists of priests, who, together with all the rest of the people, 
recognise a sort of Pope, styled Dalai Lama, as their head. 
He is regarded as the living embodiment of a Bodhisattva, 
whose soul, at the death of the individual in whom it has 
existed, always migrates into the body of his successor. Many 
of the institutions and ceremonies of Buddhism have so strik¬ 
ing a resemblance with those of the Roman Catholic religion, 
that it was at one time believed that Christianity had exer¬ 
cised great influence upon Buddhism; but subsequent inves¬ 
tigations have shown that the eastern institutions are more 
ancient than Christianity, and that in all probability Bud¬ 
dhism and Roman Catholicism have arrived at the same results 
independently of each other. Under such circumstances, the 
expulsion of Buddhism from India has not been a misfortune, 
for its purer ethics gave way at an early period to a pompous 
and wearisome ceremonial, and its influence upon intellectual 
and literary culture was any thing but beneficial. In India, 


44 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


all intellectual pursuits have ever been connected with Brah- 
minism, as is clear from the development of its literature. The 
Buddhists had indeed a literature, but it was subservient only 
to the transmission of its doctrines, whereas the national or 
Brahminical literature embraces all the relations and manifesta¬ 
tions of human life, and is worthy of the most careful study. 

16. The Vedas, as was remarked above, are the most 
ancient monuments of the Sanscrit or Brahminical literature, 
and were, according to tradition, communicated to men by 
Brahma himself. They were then handed down by oral tra¬ 
dition, until a wise man of the name of Vyasa (the collector) 
put them together in their present order, and divided them 
into four great parts, each of which is subdivided into two 
sections, of which the first contains prayers, hymns, and invo¬ 
cations, and the second rules about religious duties and theo- 
logico-philosophical doctrines. Some few of the pieces con¬ 
stituting the Vedas are evidently later interpolations, but the 
genuine parts cannot belong to a more recent date than the 
tenth century before Christ. In Sakyamuni’s time, they were 
revered as ancient works, and there can be little doubt that 
the most ancient parts were composed as early as the year b. c. 
1400. The book next in importance consists of the laws of 
Manu, which was likewise believed to be divinely inspired ; 
for Brahma was said to have communicated them to his 
grandson, Manu, the first mortal. The laws contained in 
this book are intended as a basis for all the political, reli¬ 
gious, and social relations of life. It begins with the creation 
of the world, and treats of education, marriage, domestic and 
religious duties, of government, the civil and penal law, of 
castes, repentance, the migration of souls, and the blessings of 
the future life. The age of this work is in all probability 
much more- recent than that of the Vedas, notwithstanding 
the tradition, and much also is traceable to subsequent com¬ 
pilers; but although despotism and priestly rule, as well 


SANSCRIT LITERATURE. 


45 


as a great number of petty and childish ceremonies, form the 
main substance of the work, yet the whole is pervaded by 
a spirit of profound piety and benevolence towards man and 
all living creatures. The great epic poems, the Ramayana 
and Mahabharata, are likewise believed to be of divine origin: 
they celebrate the heroes who lived and acted at the time 
when the gods used to come down upon earth and take a part 
in the affairs of men. The Ramayana describes the deeds 
and exploits of Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, and 
its historical substratum is, perhaps, the first attempt of the 
Arya to extend their dominion in the south. The main 
subject of the Mahabharata is the struggle between Pandava 
and Kaurava, two royal and heroic families ; gods, heroes, 
and giants here appear in arms against one another; all the 
members of the two princely houses perish in a frightful man¬ 
ner, with the exception of one of the Pandava, who is miracu¬ 
lously recalled to life. This poem holds a middle place 
between real mythology and historical tradition. Both these 
poems are of more recent date than the Vedas, but it is 
generally supposed that they are more ancient than the institu¬ 
tion of Buddhism. Their authors were Brahmins, and although 
they were composed chiefly for the edification of the warrior- 
caste, yet the lower caste of the Sudras were not only not 
excluded from reading them, but were even encouraged to 
study them as a means of ennobling and improving them¬ 
selves. The cultivation of dramatic poetry belongs to a 
much later period, and the most celebrated dramatic poet was 
Kalidasa, who is said to have lived at the court of King Vi- 
kramaditya? a great patron of men of talent and genius, who 
appears to have reigned about the time of the birth of Christ. 
Kalidasa’s drama, entitled Sakontala, was the first that was 
made known in Europe towards the end of last century, when 
its novelty, beauty, and singular character created general ad¬ 
miration. What is most striking in this and other poetical^pro- 


46 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


ductions of India, is the delicacy of feeling and the relations of 
man to nature, which are of the tenderest and most loving 
kind ; but they nevertheless cannot he measured by the 
European standard, for the Indians have little taste for the 
reality of things and for simple beauty, whence their heroes 
and heroines have no definite forms, but are evanescent and 
surrounded by a fantastic mistiness. And this is probably the 
reason why the Indians are little fitted for historical composition. 

17. There can scarcely be a doubt that speculative phi¬ 
losophy was cultivated by the Indians before all other nations, 
and with them, as with some others, it first appears in 
the garb of poetry. The epic Mahabharata contains a very 
remarkable episode called Bhagavad Gita, in which the hero 
Ardshuna and the god Krishna enter into a speculative con¬ 
versation which may be said to contain the elements of a 
complete system of philosophy. But in India we meet with 
the same phenomenon as in other countries, in which specu¬ 
lative philosophy has been pursued with vigour; different 
systems of philosophy, starting from different premises, were 
developed, and combated one another. Some of them were 
regarded as orthodox, because their doctrines agreed with 
those of the Vedas ; others were treated as heretical, because 
they were irreconcilable with the teaching of the Vedas, or 
had an atheistic tendency. It was one of these latter systems 
that was adopted by Sakyamuni, when he rejected the autho¬ 
rity of the Vedas, and promulgated his atheistic views. In 
practical philosophy the Indians did not make the same 
progress as in their metaphysical speculations; but still they 
did not entirely neglect it. The invention of the decimal 
system in numbers, so important in mathematics and in the 
affairs of ordinary life, which has been generally ascribed to 
the Arabs, is now well known to have been made by the 
Indians; the Arabs only imported it into Europe, and thereby 
have acquired the reputation of being its inventors. 


ARTS OF THE INDIANS. 


47 


18. The arts, as well as the poetry and philosophy of the 
Indians, were intimately connected with their religion, and 
were cultivated chiefly in its service. Architecture, in par¬ 
ticular, has produced the greatest and most astonishing works 
in the form of temples, in which the art of building is seen 
to proceed from nature, for those temples are grottoes in rocks 
widened and extended by the hand of man into mighty 
edifices. In some instances the interior only is carefully 
worked out, but in others the outer parts are finished with 
equal care, though all is wrought in the living rock. India 
is very rich in gigantic structures of this kind; European 
travellers first saw and admired those in the islands of Salsetta 
and Elephanta, near Bombay; and others were subsequently 
discovered in the interior of the western peninsula, near the 
village of Elora. Grottoes, temples, and human habitations, 
are there cut in a chain of rocks forming a crescent of about 
four miles in length; and they present such an abundance of 
sculptures and ornamental carvings of a most difficult kind, 
that they cannot have been made otherwise than by many 
thousand hands employed for an immense number of years. 
These works of Elora far surpass all others of the same class, 
both in design and execution. Some of these temples are 
Brahminical, and others are evidently destined for Buddhist 
worship ; but all must have been constructed at a very remote 
period of Indian history, and all of them were no doubt ori¬ 
ginally Brahminical temples. The forms of these architectural 
works are heavy, overloaded with ornaments, and vague, and 
they present the greatest variety of straight lines and curves; 
their chief defect is in regard to simplicity and artistic freedom. 
The Dagops and Stupas of the Buddhists form the transition 
to the later temples, which were built of blocks of stone and 
bricks. Europeans generally call these pagodas, (a corruption 
of Bhagavati, i. e., a sacred house.) Several of them excite 
by their vastness no less astonishment than the rock temples 


48 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


of Elora. These pagodas are generally built in the form of 
pyramids, consisting of several parts with vertical sides, the 
whole being surmounted by a cupola. They are covered 
with such a profusion of ornaments that the sight is perfectly 
bewildering. 

19. Sculptures, especially high reliefs in stone, occur in 
great abundance both in the grotto temples and in the pago¬ 
das. Most of the figures are remarkable for great softness, 
which displays itself particularly in the swelling roundness of 
the forms, in which bones and muscles are quite concealed. 
Many of the figures are not only of colossal size, but form 
most grotesque combinations of human bodies with heads of 
animals, and often with more than two arms to indicate 
superhuman strength, while others with several heads are in¬ 
tended to represent superhuman wisdom. These and many 
other peculiarities show that art in India had not yet come to 
see that high bodily and mental powers must be expressed 
by features, forms, proportions, and symmetry, and by a faith¬ 
ful adherence to mature. Indian art thus shows the same 
peculiarities as Indian poetry; both delight in the expression 
of softness, combined with what is fantastic and grotesque. 
The civilisation of India, if viewed by itself and in its seclu¬ 
sion from the rest of the world, is far greater and more im¬ 
portant, than if regarded in its connection with that of other 
nations. India is indeed closely connected with other parts 
of the world by its language and the literature which mirrors 
forth the intellectual life of the better part of the nation ; but 
that connection is lost in a period of such remote antiquity, 
that history, as such, knows nothing of it. Some ideas and 
inventions no doubt did originate in India, which were after¬ 
wards imported into Europe ; but their historical recollection 
has faded away so much, that the threads can be discovered 
only by laborious and learned inquiries. It cannot therefore 
be asserted that India has at any time exercised any consider- 


IRAN. 


49 


able influence upon tlie civilisation of the western world. As 
to itself, it shares the fate of all eastern countries: it has 
reached a certain point beyond which it has been unable to 
advance, and has lost the power of regenerating itself, ot 
renewing its intellectual life, and of opening new paths for 
itself, by which it might recover and maintain an honourable 
independence. 


CHAPTER IV. 

IRAN (BACTRIA, MEDIA, AND PERSIA). 

1. We here use the name Iran in its modern acceptation, 
comprising the country of the Bactrians, Medes, and Persians, 
for these three nations constitute one great branch of the Indo- 
Germanic race, and are now generally called Iranians, and 
their country Iran.* The people themselves being nearest akin 
to the Arya of India, called themselves by the same honourable 
name.f Greeks and Romans apply the names Bactrians, 
Medes, or Persians, to the whole race, according as any of the 
three branches acquired the supremacy over the others, and 
thereby threw them into the background. Iran, or the country 
of the Iranians, is the western highland of Asia, which is much 
smaller than the eastern highlands; the two are connected by a 
range of mountains which the historians of Alexander call the 
Indian Caucasus, and which now bears the name of the 
Hindoo Kush. The interior of Iran consists of an exten- 

* This name occurs in ancient times only on some coins of the Sas- 
sanidae. 

-f- The name is also spelt Airya, whence Iran. Arii, and Ariana, 
are the names by which the ancients actually designated the greater 
part of ancient Persia. 

E 



50 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


sive table-land, tbe greater part of which has all the charac¬ 
teristics of a desert, especially wanting water and trees, and 
being of a cold temperature. This table-land, like that on 
the east of it, is surrounded by mountains which give to the 
whole country the character of an immense fortress, there 
being only a few passes by which an entrance can be effected, 
and these passes run along the most dangerous precipices, or 
are so narrow that they can be closed by means of gates. 
Nearly all the more important towns of Iran are built in the 
vicinity of these passes. The declivities of the mountains on 
the frontiers form transition countries, some of which are re¬ 
markable for their high temperature and their luxurious vege¬ 
tation ; but even these have few rivers, and require artificial 
irrigation to assist agricultural operations. 

2. In the history of China and India, no inconsiderable 
assistance is to be derived from observing the actual state of the 
countries and of their inhabitants, who have been stationary 
for many centuries. Such is not the case in Iran, for here 
great changes and revolutions have thoroughly shaken and 
altered the ancient condition of both the country and its 
inhabitants. But, on the other hand, the sources from 
which information may be obtained regarding its ancient 
history are more accessible and more generally known; the 
classical nations of antiquity having frequently come into 
contact with the Persians, their writers are far better ac¬ 
quainted with them, and throw much more light upon their 
history than upon that of India. Besides this information 
furnished by foreigners, we have the native literature of the 
Persians, written in the sacred Zend language, which was 
probably once spoken in the eastern parts of Iran, while the 
ancient Persic, properly so called, was spoken in the western 
parts, though both are only dialects of the same branch of 
the Indo-Germanic stock. The sacred writings in the Zend 
language, called Zend-Avesta, were unknown in Europe. 


IRAN. 


51 


until, about the middle of last century, a Frenchman of the 
name of Anquetil du Perron brought them to France, and' 
published a translation of them. These books excited great 
interest at the time, because they revealed one of the most 
remarkable of religious systems, which until then had been 
very imperfectly known. The authenticity of the works, which 
was at first questioned, has since been established beyond all 
doubt by oriental scholars. Neither the value, however, nor 
the antiquity of all the books forming the Zend-Avesta is the 
same; the most ancient ones must have been composed before 
the conquest of Alexander the Great, which opened Iran 
to the influence of Greek civilisation; for the legends and 
religious views they contain appear, if not in their original 
freshness and purity, yet free from foreign admixture. 

3. The Zend-Avesta contains a very remarkable tradition 
about the immigration of the Ary a into Iran. Once, it is 
said, the winter in Airyanem-Vaego, the original abode of 
the people, lasted for ten months, and its severity induced 
their king Djemshid to emigrate with his people into warmer 
and more southern countries, which had been blessed by Or- 
muzd. Djemshid had a golden dagger, a present from Ormuzd, 
with which he cleft the earth wherever he went; blessings 
thus spread everywhere, and the countries became filled with 
tame and wild beasts, with birds, and men, and red shining 
fires, which had never before been seen there. This tradition 
evidently describes the immigration of the Arya from their ori¬ 
ginal homes, in the extreme north-east of Iran, about the 
sources of the Oxus and Jaxartes; the migration from the 
north-east to the south-west was followed by the spread of 
agriculture, and all the advantages that flow from it as its 
natural consequences. 

4. It is one of the fundamental doctrines with all the 
Iranians, that originally all things, both moral and physical, 
were divided into good and evil. Each of these two divisions 


52 


ASIATIC NATI0N3. 


was presided over by a divine being, the good by Ormuzd, and 
the evil by Ahriman. Neither of these beings was regarded 
as eternal, but as produced by Zervane Akerene, that is, 
uncreated Time, who, after the creation of Ormuzd and Ahri¬ 
man entirely disappears, leaving the creation and government 
of the world, and of all that is contained in it, to those two 
mighty and divine beings. Ormuzd was from the beginning 
in a region of light, the symbol of all that is good, while Ahri¬ 
man dwelt in darkness, the symbol of evil, and the two were 
perpetually at war with each other. Ormuzd began and com¬ 
pleted the creation, which was a creation of light; and Ahri¬ 
man, though conceived as the destroyer, was nevertheless 
regarded as a creator; but his creation was the empire of 
death, and darkness, and evil, which he constituted in such 
a manner as to oppose to every creature of Ormuzd one 
created by himself, with similar qualities, but perverted into 
evil; thus he created the wo^f as the counterpart to the 
useful dog; and in general all beasts of prey, which shun the 
light, or crawl on the earth ; and all troublesome and destruc¬ 
tive insects were regarded as creatures of Ahriman. In this 
manner the whole of the physical world was divided between 
light and darkness, and all the moral world between good and 
evil; and the two worlds were conceived as engaged in a per¬ 
petual struggle with, each other—the evil trying to destroy the 
good, while the good, in its turn, is bent upon overpowering 
the evil. It was believed, however, that in the end the prin¬ 
ciple of good would gain the victory ; and, according to some, 
even Ahriman and his followers were then to be purified and 
admitted among the blessed. In both these empires, there 
existed intermediate beings between the supreme rulers and 
the race of mortals; they consisted of spirits of different grades 
and ranks. The throne of Ormuzd was surrounded by six 
arch-spirits, called Amsliaspands* Next to them in rank were 
the Izeds, who stood to the Amshaspands in the same rela- 


IRAN. 


53 


tion as the latter did to Ormuzd. The hosts of other inferior 
spirits, called Fervers, were innumerable, and pervaded all 
nature, for every living creature had its Ferver dwelling in 
it, imparting to it life and motion, and conferring physical 
and spiritual blessings on those who addressed it in pious and 
humble prayer. The spirits in the empire of Ahriman were 
called Devs, six of whom answered to the Amshaspands, and 
they were the authors of every misfortune, and of all sins. 
This religious system, notwithstanding its singular dualism, 
is yet far more spiritual than any of the other polytheistic 
religions of Asia. It seems to have originated in the worship 
of the heavenly bodies which shed their light upon the earth, 
for this worship prevailed in a very large part of Asia, where 
the cloudless sky, with its transparent blue, clothes all nature 
with a peculiar brilliancy. Light there naturally appeared 
as the vivifying principle, diffusing joy and happiness over all 
creation, while darkness seemed to remove and destroy all 
that owed its origin and life to light. Hence fire also was 
worshipped, as the element containing and diffusing light, and 
in special places a perpetual fire was kept up, with certain 
purifications and ceremonies. This material worship of light 
and fire was raised in the religion of Ormuzd to a spiritual 
character, for in it light is no longer a merely physical, but a 
moral good, and the symbol of higher spiritual purity. For 
a long time, worship was paid simply to the light and fire as 
they appeared in nature; the imagination of the Iranians 
neither conceived the objects of their worship in definite 
forms, nor invented any mythological stories about them. 
Sacrifices were offered in the open air and on hills, and He¬ 
rodotus expressly states that the Persians in his time had 
neither statues, nor temples, nor altars. But religion did not 
remain in this condition ; for, as we shall see hereafter, ido¬ 
latry was introduced as early as the time of the Persian em¬ 
pire. At a still later period, idolatry again disappeared, and 


54 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


its place was supplied by the material worship of fire, and at 
this stage the religion of Ormuzd has continued to the present 
day ; for the few surviving remnants of the ancient Ira¬ 
nians, called Parsi, still cling to the worship of their ances¬ 
tors, notwithstanding the furious persecutions of the Mahom- 
medans. They are found in some of the eastern parts of Iran, 
especially in Surate in western India, where Anquetil du Per¬ 
ron found copies of their ancient sacred books, which were 
preserved by the priests with great care, and even danger to 
themselves. But the preservation of these books had not 
been able to preserve the spiritual element of religion, which 
has become a coarse, mechanical, and superstitious fire 
worship, detested and abhorred by the Mahommedan popu¬ 
lation. 

5. According to the ancient and genuine doctrine of the 
Zend-Avesta, man became mortal through the sin of his first 
parents, and for the same reason he was placed in the middle 
between the world of Ormuzd and that of Ahriman. Being 
free in his choice, but weak, he would sink under the dominion 
of Ahriman and his agents, who watch him night and day, 
and endeavour to draw him into the region of darkness, were 
it not that Ormuzd had revealed to him the law of light. 
Under the guidance of this law man is able to escape from 
the pursuit of Ahriman and his Devs, and to arrive at a state 
of bliss, which was the object of Ormuzd in revealing his law. 
The sum and substance of this law is, that man must be pure 
in his thoughts, words, and actions; and the pure man must 
shun the contact of everything proceeding from Ahriman, 
the source of all that is impure. If he has been unable 
to avoid coming into contact with the impure, he is obliged 
to undergo a process of purification, consisting of a variety 
of ceremonies. The worship of the sacred fire, sacrifices, 
prayers, and the reading of the sacred books, constitute the 
chief religious observances. Contact with dead bodies of 


IRAN. 


55 


animals or men was regarded as particularly polluting, whence 
the people were neither allowed to bury nor to burn their 
dead; by the former the earth would have become polluted, 
and by the latter the fire. Accordingly, there remained 
nothing but to expose the dead bodies in a place where 
they did not .come into contact with the earth, until the 
birds of prey or wild beasts had consumed the flesh, after 
which the bones were collected and preserved. In all this, 
moral and physical purity are blended and confounded. But 
one part of the law tells men what to do to induce the 
earth to yield them her blessings : they are enjoined to build 
towns, where priests, herds and flocks, women and children, 
might congregate in purity; to cultivate waste lands and 
improve them by irrigation, and, lastly, to take care of the 
cattle and all domestic animals. This part of the law is 
evidently intended to promote and preserve civilisation, and, 
while Ormuzd thus presides over civilised life, Ahriman rejoices 
in wildness and savageness, and everything that is opposed to 
a well-organized social system. Hence the Iranians, con¬ 
sidering their own country to be under the special protection 
of Ormuzd, believed that the land in the north-east, beyond 
the river Oxus, was under the direct influence of Ahriman, 
because it was inhabited by rude nomadic tribes which were 
hostile to them; and they distinguished that country from 
their own by giving it the name Turan. Their aversion 
to the Turanians, however, arose not from the mere fact of 
their being nomades, but because they were hostile to them 
and all their social and religious institutions, for some of the 
Iranian tribes themselves led a nomadic life. 

6. The religion of Ormuzd, by impressing upon its ad¬ 
herents the necessity of subduing nature, and of combating 
with all their might the influence of the empire of Ahriman, 
could not fail to rouse them to a* life full of vigorous activity, 
and it must have exercised a very considerable influence upon 


56 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


the social and political condition of the people ; but we pos¬ 
sess, unfortunately, only very little historical information 
about the earliest times. The Zend-Avesta mentions a divi¬ 
sion of the people into four classes or castes, viz., priests or 
magi, warriors, agriculturists, and tradesmen. The king and 
the judges belonged to the first or priestly caste, the warriors 
seem to have formed a sort of nobility, and the whole classi¬ 
fication must have been based on differences of descent, but 
it was never so strictly enforced and observed as in India, 
nor does it seem ever to have embraced the whole nation, as 
the nomadic tribes, which cannot have been classed with the 
agriculturists, are not included in the list of castes. 

7. The most ancient, and at the same time the only native 
records of the history of Iran, are contained in the Zend- 
Avesta ; but they are so entirely mythical that it w r ould be 
useless to attempt to deduce any history from them. In the 
middle ages, the Persian poet Firdusi incorporated in a 
great epic the extant traditions about the ancient exploits of 
his countrymen; but these traditions are so thoroughly le¬ 
gendary, and so much embellished in the oriental fashion, 
that they cannot be regarded as a real basis for history. It 
is only by applying more than ordinary violence that some 
of them can be made to harmonise with the accounts trans¬ 
mitted to us by the Greeks. We are therefore obliged to 
take these last as our guides in drawing up our sketch of 
the history of Persia. But even they do not go very far 
back, leaving us entirely in ignorance in regard to the 
most ancient periods. Hence the age of Zerdusht, com¬ 
monly called Zoroaster, the famous religious lawgiver of the 
Persians, is buried in utter obscurity. Some Greek authors 
state that he flourished about five thousand years before the 
Trojan war, according to which he would be a purely mythi¬ 
cal being. Firdusi relates that he lived in the reign of King 
Gushtasb, who adopted his doctrines, ordered his subjects to 


BACTRIA. 


57 


establish the worship of fire, and diffused the Zend-Avesta 
throughout his dominions. Some critics, identifying this 
Gushtasb with Darius the son of Hystaspes, believe that 
Zoroaster must have lived in the sixth century before the 
Christian era. But there appears to be no good reason for 
regarding the Gushtasb of Firdusi, and Darius son of Hys¬ 
taspes, as the same person; and moreover, if such a man 
had lived at that time, the Greeks could hardly have left him 
unnoticed. The probability is, that Zoroaster flourished 
somewhere about the year 1000 b.c. Shortly after the time 
of Darius, the Persians began to lose their original character, 
which it must have taken centuries to develope under the law 
of Ormuzd. The Zend-Avesta does not describe Zoroaster 
as the original author of fire worship, but only as a prophet 
who developed and completed the whole system. Hence he 
cannot be regarded either as a purely mythical personage, nor 
be assigned to so late a date as that of Darius. 

8. The most ancient Iranian empire, about which Greek 
writers furnish any information, is Bactria or Bactriana, with 
its capital of Bactra or Zariaspa. It formed the north-eastern 
part of Iran, bordering upon Turan. Most of the accounts we 
have of Bactria refer to its invasions and conquests by foreign 
enemies. Thus we are told that Ninus (about b. c. 1230) 
marched with a vast army into the country and besieged 
Bactra, which, however, he was unable to take, until Semi- 
ramis came to his assistance. Afterwards the Bactrians are 
said to have submitted to Cyrus, king of Persia, (about b. c. 
540) who appointed one of his sons satrap of Bactria and 
some adjacent countries. Thenceforth the country continued 
to form part of the Persian empire, to which it was tributary, 
but repeated attempts were made to shake off the yoke. 
Alexander the Great (b. c. 329) conquered Bactria, like the 
other parts of the kingdom of Persia, and appointed satraps as 
its governors; but about the year b.c. 256, the governor Antio- 


58 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


clius Theus threw off the yoke of Alexander’s successors, and 
proclaimed himself independent king of Bactria. He was 
succeeded by several kings whose names are known only from 
coins, found in modern times at Balkh and Bokhara, and bear¬ 
ing Greek legends. The reign of Eucratidas, who ascended 
the throne about b. c. 181, appears to have been long and pros¬ 
perous, for he is said to have ruled over a thousand cities, and 
to have annexed even a part of India to his dominions. Several 
of his successors, again, are known only from their coins, which 
continue to bear Greek legends, until in the end the dominion 
of the Greek rulers was overthrown by Scythian tribes, which, 
about b. c. 100, extended their sway as far as the mouths of 
the river Indus. The coins of the new rulers, who were 
evidently barbarians, continue to bear Greek inscriptions, but 
they gradually become so corrupt, that it is clear they 
were made by people who were not familiar with the Greek 
language. These Scythian rulers were succeeded by a race 
commonly called Indo-Scythians, whose chief seat appears to 
have been on the river Kabul, for their coins are discovered 
in great numbers between Kabul and Jelalabad. The time 
when these Indo-Scythians succeeded in gaining the ascend¬ 
ency is unknown ; the legends of their coins are still in Greek 
characters, but we frequently meet with Indian words. 
When the Sassanidae (a. d. 226) restored the Persian em¬ 
pire, Bactria again became a province of it, and in this con¬ 
dition it remained, until, in the eighth century after Christ, 
the country was conquered by Mahommedan invaders. A 
kind of Greek civilisation, the result of Alexander’s con¬ 
quests, had thus maintained itself for several centuries in 
the distant East, until in the end it was extinguished by 
barbarians; and were it not for the numerous coins with 
Greek inscriptions found in those parts, we should hardly 
know anything of the existence of a Greek empire in the 
north-east of Iran. 


MEDIA. 


59 


9. 4 he history of Media has been transmitted to us in a 
more complete and satisfactory form. That country, situated 
in the west of Iran, was regarded by the ancients as one of 
the most important parts of Asia, on account of its extent, its 
favourable climate, the number of its warlike inhabitants, its 
excellent breed of horses, and its great fertility, especially in 
the warm plains. At present these advantages no longer exist, 
for both the population and civilisation have sunk very low, 
and the artificial irrigation which the country requires has 
been almost entirely neglected. The history of Media previous 
to the thirteenth century b. c. is unknown to us; but about 
that time it was subdued by the Assyrians, whose yoke the 
Medes bore for a period of about five hundred years. But 
they then took courage, and freeing themselves from foreign 
dominion, restored their country to independence. Under 
what form of government they lived after their liberation, we 
have no means of ascertaining, but we are told that the 
increasing state of lawlessness and anarchy filled the people 
with fear lest they should be compelled to quit their native 
country, and that, in consequence, they resolved to appoint a 
king. They accordingly elected from among themselves 
Deioces, a man who had already acquired great reputation as 
a judge in his own district, and was ambitious of gaining the 
sovereign power among his countrymen. He reigned from 
b. c. 709 till 656, and from the first surrounded himself with 
a strong body-guard, and built the capital of Ecbatana, which 
he fortified with a sevenfold wall. The innermost of these 
walls enclosed the royal palace and the treasury. At present 
there are but few remains of Ecbatana, in the neighbourhood 
of Hamadan. The monarchy which he established was here¬ 
ditary, and a kind of military despotism. His successor 
Phraortes, from b. c. 656 to 634, commenced a great war 
against the Assyrian empire, but lost his life in a decisive 
battle. In the reign of his son Cyaxares, from b.c. 634 to 594, 


60 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


the kingdom was invaded by Scythian hordes from the coun¬ 
tries about mount Caucasus, and was kept in subjection by 
them for a period of twenty-eight years, at the end of which, 
Cyaxares and his Medes not only expelled the foreign invaders, 
but resumed the war against the Assyrians, to avenge the 
defeat of his father. For this purpose, he allied himself with 
Nabopolassar, king of Babylon, and succeeded in taking and 
destroying the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, and subduing 
the empire. When he died, after a reign of forty years, he 
was succeeded by his son Astyages. The Median empire 
which was thus restored by Cyaxares, embraced, besides 
Media, also Assyria, and was further extended by the subju¬ 
gation of Persia proper and Bactria. It was bounded on the 
west by the river Halys. Astyages who reigned from b. c. 
594 till 559, was the last king of Media, for in his reign the 
subject Persians rose against the Medes, and having overthrown 
their power, subdued the whole of the Median empire. Ac¬ 
cording to Herodotus, the daughter of Astyages married a 
Persian noble, whose son Cyrus usurped the throne of Media, 
and thus became the founder of the Persian empire in b. c. 559. 

10. The history of Cyrus*—setting aside the romance 
related by Xenophon in his Cyropaedia—has been transmitted 
to us in a legendary form by Herodotus. According to this, 
his grandfather Astyages, having been frightened by a dream, 
gave orders that the son born of his daughter should be 
killed; but the child was saved and reared by a she-dog in 
the mountains of Persia. He grew up, and became the most 
distinguished archer and horseman among the warlike Persians. 
He must have been one of those mighty characters whose 
mere appearance exercises a peculiar charm upon those coming 
in contact with them, and who, when successful in great 
undertakings, are regarded by their contemporaries as direct 
instruments in the hands of the deity. In regard to his 
* Properly Koresh or Kurshid, that is, the Sun. 


PERSIA. 


61 


early history, all that can be said with certainty is, that he 
roused the Persians to an insurrection against the ruling 
Medes, who were defeated in a pitched battle ; all Media then 
fell into the hands of Cyrus, in consequence of which, the 
sovereignty passed into the hands of the Persians. The* 
Medes afterwards made several attempts to recover their 
lost power, but were unsuccessful. The main advantage 
gained by the Persians was that henceforth they had no longer 
to pay the heavy land-tax which had hitherto been imposed 
upon them by the Medes, the latter having now to fulfil 
the same obligation to them. On the other hand, how¬ 
ever, the Persians, who had hitherto enjoyed comparative 
freedom in their own country, were gradually brought under 
the same despotism as those nations which had been subdued 
by their chief. All the countries which had been subject to 
Media now naturally owned the sway of the new rulers. But 
that empire did not satisfy Cyrus: in the course of his 
thirty years’ reign (from b. c. 559 to 531) he extended it 
from the Hellespont, the iEgean, and the frontiers of Egypt, in 
the West, to the Oxus in the East. Soon after his accession, 
he became involved in a war with Croesus, king of Lydia. 
This king, it is said, had been an ally of Astyages, and now 
resolved to avenge him on the usurper; but it was probably 
the fear of being attacked by the successful conqueror that in¬ 
duced Croesus to anticipate the plans of the enemy. He accor¬ 
dingly made war upon Cyrus, but in a battle on the east of the 
river Halys, the Lydians were defeated, and obliged to make a 
hasty retreat to their own country. Cyrus, with unexpected 
rapidity, pursued the enemy through Cappadocja and Phrygia, 
and appeared before Sardes,the capital of Lydia, before Croesus 
was able to assemble a new army. In a short time the city 
and its citadel fell into the hands of Cyrus, and Croesus him¬ 
self was taken prisoner. This important event occurred in the 
year b. c. 546. Cyrus is said to have ordered the conquered 


62 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


king to be burnt alive, but while standing on the pile, the 
unfortunate man, remembering a wise saying of Solon, who 
had once visited him, and refused to own that Croesus, in 
spite of his immense wealth, deserved to be called happy, 
exclaimed Solon, Solon! Cyrus surprised at this, asked what 
it meant, and upon being informed, ordered Croesus to be 
brought down from the pile, and to accompany him to the court 
of Persia. This beautiful story, unfortunately, is irreconcilable 
with chronology, for Croesus did not ascend the throne of 
Lydia till b. c. 560, and Solon himself died in that same year 
or the one following. Certain it is, however, that Croesus 
for many a year afterwards lived at the court of Persia, enjoy¬ 
ing the respect and esteem of both Cyrus and his son Cambyses. 
The conquest of Lydia was accompanied by that of other 
nations in Asia Minor; the Mysians, Phrygians, and Paphla- 
gonians, submitted without a blow; but the Greek colonies 
in Asia, many of which had been subject to Croesus, and the 
Carians and Lycians, the last of whom had not belonged to 
the Lydian empire, were resolved to defend their freedom 
against the new conqueror. But they were unable to main¬ 
tain themselves, for one Greek city after another, though they 
defended themselves with true heroism, was obliged to sub¬ 
mit, and some of them experienced all the horrors of cities 
taken by the sword. The inhabitants of Phocaea emigrated, 
and founded Yelia (Elea) in southern Italy. The other Greek 
cities, after the withdrawal of Cyrus, retained their own 
republican constitutions, but were obliged to pay tribute to the 
Persians; they remained wealthy and flourishing, but their 
free spirit as Greeks gradually disappeared under the Persian 
rule. Lycia and Caria also were overpowered by Cyrus, and 
the ruler of Cilicia recognised the supremacy of the conqueror. 
All Asia Minor was thus reduced. The Lydians afterwards 
endeavoured to shake off the foreign dominion, but were unsuc¬ 
cessful, and the yoke only became harder and heavier: their 


PERSIA. 


63 


arms were taken from them, and they were compelled to live 
in the enjoyment of the wealth they possessed, in consequence 
of which they became demoralised and effeminate. 

Babylon had not been subject to the Medes, and had 
therefore to be conquered by force of arms. This conquest 
was not accomplished by Cyrus without great efforts, but 
when effected, added vast territories to the Persian empire, 
for all Syria, together with Phoenicia and Palestine, seem 
at that period to have been subject to Babylon. The con¬ 
quest of Babylon, which took place in b. c. 538, is related 
in different ways. According to the native tradition, Na- 
bonnedus, king of Babylon, met the enemy in the open field, 
but being defeated in a pitched battle, he retreated to Bor- 
sippa, the city of the Chaldaeans, where he was besieged, 
and afterwards capitulated. His life, however, like that of 
Croesus, was spared, and he spent the remainder of his days 
in a small principality in Carmania. According to Herodotus, 
Cyrus took the city of Babylon by turning the course of the 
river Euphrates, the city being built on both sides of it, 
so that he was enabled to march into the very heart of the 
place as soon as the ordinary bed of the river was dried up. 
By this conquest Cyrus at once became the sovereign of all 
the countries which had been subject to Babylon. 

The last undertaking of Cyrus was, according to Hero¬ 
dotus, an expedition against the Massagetae, which Ctesias 
assigns to an earlier period, and accordingly makes Cyrus 
return victorious; whereas Herodotus states that he lost his 
life in a battle against the Massagetae. This nation was 
probably of the Mongol or Tartar race, living chiefly by the 
chase and on the produce of their herds and flocks. They 
occupied the country about the Caspian sea, or the steppes to 
the north of the river Oxus, and were at this time governed by 
a queen, Tomyris. Cyrus commenced the war against them, 
and entrapped them by a stratagem: he left his camp and 


64 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


a great quantity of wine, and when the Massagetae took the 
camp, they indulged so much in drinking as to become 
intoxicated, whereupon Cyrus returned and captured a great 
number of them, and among them the queen’s son, who was 
so mortified at the disaster that, although he had obtained 
his freedom from the conqueror, he made away with himself. 
The queen then, filled with grief and revenge, collected a 
fresh army, and in a terrible battle avenged the loss of her 
son, and of so many of her people. The body of Cyrus was 
treated with insult by Tomyris, for she cut off the head, 
and, throwing it into a bag filled with blood, exclaimed, 
“ Now sate thyself with blood, of which during thy life thou 
wast so thirsty.” This account, preserved in Herodotus, is, 
like many of his eastern stories, only a popular tradition, 
though the war against the Massagetae itself cannot be 
doubted. Certain it is also, that Cyrus died in the year b. c. 
531, that his body was buried at Persepolis, and that he was 
succeeded by his son Cambyses, in b. c. 530, who was recog¬ 
nised throughout the whole empire without any opposition. 

11. Cambyses inherited indeed the warlike disposition of 
his father, but he was violent and tyrannical, whence his 
reign, which lasted until b. c. 522, was as unfortunate for 
those whom he subdued as for his own empire. Its two 
most remarkable events are the conquest of Egypt, and 
the murder of his brother, which led to the usurpation of the 
Magi, so that the government for a time passed into the hands 
of the Medes; until the Persians, recovering their courage, 
threw off the yoke. From Herodotus it would seem as if Cam¬ 
byses had set out on the Egyptian expedition immediately after 
his accession, but this is impossible, for the conquest of Egypt 
is known to belong to the year b. c. 526. The attack upon 
Egypt was made without any provocation, and arose simply 
from his consciousness that he was strong enough to conquer 
the country he coveted. The story that his anger w'as roused 


PERSIA. 


65 


against the Egyptians by an Egyptian woman, is probably a 
mere fiction. Egypt was then governed by king Psammeni- 
tus. Cambyses, assisted by a treacherous Greek, Phanes of 
Halicarnassus, invaded Egypt by land and by sea, being 
supplied with a fleet by the Phoenicians and the maritime 
towns of Asia Minor. The land army marched into Egypt 
through the desert, but the Egyptians met the invaders on 
the frontier, and a decisive battle was fought in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Pelusium, in which the Egyptians were com¬ 
pletely defeated. After this victory the Persians advanced 
towards Memphis, then the capital of Egypt, where the 
people, in consequence of the national antipathy subsisting 
between the Persians and Egyptians, offered an obstinate 
and almost fanatical resistance. At length, however, famine 
compelled them to surrender, and they were treated with 
fearful cruelty by the conqueror. The Persians being them¬ 
selves worshippers of light and fire, thoroughly despised the 
religion of the Egyptians, and Cambyses and his soldiery 
insulted and maltreated their conquered enemies in every 
way and on every occasion. According to Herodotus, Cam¬ 
byses spent the remainder of his life in Egypt, being occupied 
with designs of fresh conquests, for he wished to carry his 
arms as far into Africa as his father had carried them into 
Asia; but nature opposed him. He first sent an army 
against the Ethiopians, but it perished in the desert under 
whirlwinds of sand. An expedition to the oasis of Siwah 
(Ammonium) experienced a similar fate, and these failures 
only increased the despot's cruelty towards the Egyptians. 
Another expedition was proposed against Carthage, but Cam¬ 
byses could not undertake this without the fleet of the 
Phoenicians, and as they refused to aid their ruler in the 
subjugation of their own colony, the plan was given up. 

Cambyses abandoned himself in Egypt to habits of in¬ 
toxication, and to the gratification of every whim and passion; 


66 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


which hurt the feelings of his own Persians no less than those 
of the Egyptians. Being taunted by the son of a noble Persian 
with being too much given to drinking, he shot the young 
man with an arrow through the heart; and the father of 
the youth, who witnessed the deed, when asked by Cam- 
byses whether he now believed him to be drunk, servilely 
answered, that a god himself could not have aimed more cor¬ 
rectly. On another occasion, he ordered twelve Persian 
nobles to be buried up to their necks in the earth. Among 
other atrocities, he ordered, in consequence of a dream, his own 
brother Smerdis to be put to death, and the deed was done by 
the very man whose son Cambyses had shot. 

After this murder a pretender arose, who,with great bold¬ 
ness and address, possessed a remarkable resemblance to the 
murdered prince, and came forward at Ecbatana under his 
name to claim the throne. This Smerdis was a Mede, and 
his brother had been intrusted with the administration of the 
empire during the absence of Cambyses. Supported by this 
brother, Smerdis at once took possession of the treasures and 
the throne of Persia, and the people, tired of the tyranny of 
Cambyses, without hesitation recognised him as their ruler. In 
order to secure their favour, he adopted a policy opposed to that 
of the detested tyrant. When Cambyses heard of all this, he 
set out against the usurper with his army ; but his career was 
cut short, before he had an opportunity of meeting his enemy 
in battle. He accidentally wounded himself with his own 
sword, and died in consequence, mortification having taken 
place in the wound, b. c. 522. As he left no children, the 
army readily recognised the Pseudo-Smerdis as their king, for 
as Cambyses had never made the death of his brother publicly 
known, he was generally believed to be the real Smerdis. 

12. This is the view taken by Herodotus, according to 
whom the empire was governed by a Mede, while every one 
believed him to be a Persian; but the whole affair seems to 


PERSIA. 


67 


have been a revolution, by which the Medes endeavoured to 
recover their lost power, and for a time were successful. But, 
before a year had passed away, seven of the noblest Persians 
led on their countrymen against the usurper, and overpowered 
and slew him in his palace. Upon this there arose a general 
insurrection against the Medes and their Magi, of whom the 
Persians slew as many as they could find; and a festival was 
then instituted to commemorate the event, under the name of 
the Magophonia. When the Medes were completely van¬ 
quished, the Persians raised one of their own grandees, 
Darius, the son of Hystaspes, to the throne, b. o. 521. He 
reigned until b. c. 486, and this long period was no less im¬ 
portant in the history of Persia than the reign of Cyrus him¬ 
self had been; for Cyrus and Cambyses had enlarged the 
empire by conquests, but Darius organised and consolidated 
the unwieldy mass. He divided his vast kingdom into twenty 
satrapies or provinces, the administration of each of which 
was intrusted to a satrap or governor, whose duties were not 
indeed clearly defined; but without some such arrangement 
the empire could not have been kept together; and under 
the circumstances, his institutions must have be^n as good as 
any that could have been devised, for they lasted till the 
end of the Persian empire. In addition to these internal 
regulations, Darius also, like his predecessors, extended his 
empire in all directions. He subdued not only the border 
countries of India, but the whole valley of the Indus became 
part of his empire, so that Persian ships sailed up the river 
as far as it was navigable. He also made the Arabs tribu¬ 
tary, though their country remained free and was not changed 
into a province. Cyrene in Africa, and Thrace and Mace¬ 
donia in Europe, together with the Greek islands near the 
Asiatic coast, had to pay homage and tribute to him. It 
appears to have been his ambition also to subdue the coun¬ 
tries around the Euxine, and to unite the continent of Greece 


68 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


with his empire. But in these last undertakings he was not 
successful. The Scythian nomades on the lower Danube 
withdrew with their tents and herds, leaving their deserted 
and barren country to the enemy, who, from want of provi¬ 
sions, were brought to the very brink of destruction, and would 
on their return have perished on the banks of the Danube, if 
the Greeks who had been commissioned to guard the bridge 
on that river had agreed to break it down, as Miltiades advised. 
Darius was more successful in quelling the insurrections which 
broke out in the interior of his empire. Babylon, which made 
an attempt to shake off the Persian yoke, was re-conquered 
through the treachery of Zopyrus, a Persian noble, who is 
said to have mutilated himself in order to win the confidence 
of the enemy. Miletus and the Greek cities in Asia likewise 
revolted, and, although at first successful, had in the end to 
pay dearly for their thoughtless attempt. But we shall after¬ 
wards have occasion to recur to these events, and must now 
turn our attention to the reforms which Darius introduced in 
his own empire. 

13. Darius himself and his successors belonged to the 
noble family of the Achaemenidae, besides which there were 
six other great families, from which the generals and great 
officers of state were chosen by the king. The Persians 
proper, as the ruling people, were exempt from all taxes; at 
home they were free and governed themselves, but as soon as 
they went abroad or to the court, they were slaves like all 
the other subjects of the king. In all the other parts of 
the empire a uniform system of administration and taxation 
was introduced. The administration was facilitated by the 
division of the empire into satrapies. The military affairs in 
each province were managed by the satrap, but besides him, 
there was a royal scribe in every province, who was quite 
independent of the satrap, and whose business it was to levy 
the tribute and taxes. Every satrap himself kept a court in 
his province, and lived in royal splendour, deriving his income 


PERSIA. 


69 


from all parts of his province partly in money and partly in 
produce of the land. As the satraps were generally relations of 
the king, and were possessed of great power, the provinces were 
without any redress against their extortions ; for if the gover¬ 
nors only took care that the tribute to the king was punctually 
paid, they were allowed to rule according to their own plea¬ 
sure, and satisfy their avarice in any manner they pleased. 
Sometimes they even went so far as to defy the commands of 
their king, and to wage war among one another. On the 
whole, it may he said that, with the organisation it possessed, 
the Persian empire was a mere accumulation of heterogeneous 
masses, kept together only by mechanical means, without 
any internal bond of union, except fear. No attempts 
were made to destroy the national character of the provin¬ 
cials, and the Persian government generally left to conquered 
nations their institutions, laws, and customs, and sometimes 
even their rulers, if they otherwise obeyed the king's com¬ 
mands and paid their tribute. But notwithstanding this, the 
provinces generally sank into a state of barbarism, for no laws 
protected them against the arbitrary and despotic conduct of 
their governors, the taxation was extremely heavy, and the 
loss of political independence gradually extinguished that 
manly spirit without which no nation can rise to greatness. 

The Persian army was very numerous, every man capable 
of bearing arms being obliged to serve, and in time of need 
they were called to arms to their various rallying places. 
The soldiers served in their national costumes and armour, 
which gave to a Persian army a very motley appearance. 

The religion of the Persians was the system of the Mede 
Zoroaster, though it was modified in some points. Fire and 
the sun were objects of worship, and formed the chief points 
of the Persian religion. The Magi or priests of the Medes 
were adopted by the Persians, together with their religion, 
and were at first a very powerful class of men ; but under the 
military despotism they gradually lost their former power and 


70 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


importance. In science and literature the Persians have left 
no great name in history; hut the noble ruins of Persepolis, 
consisting of the remains of temples, palaces, porticoes, reliefs, 
and other sculptures, and walls covered with inscriptions, show 
that in architecture and sculpture they were by no means 
behind other Asiatic nations. 

The king of Persia, also called the Great King, was a 
most perfect despot. As in other Asiatic countries, he was 
regarded as the sole proprietor of the land. In their relation 
to the king, all his subjects were only slaves, and the king was 
master over the lives of all his people. Whoever was ad¬ 
mitted into his presence had to prostrate himself and kiss the 
earth. As the throne of Ormuzd was surrounded by spirits 
of light, so the Persian king, his representative on earth, was 
surrounded by the noblest Persians and a most brilliant court, 
which resided in winter at Babylon, in the spring at Susa, 
and in the summer at Ecbatana. The king’s palaces were 
surrounded with splendid parks, called paradises, and well 
stocked with fruit-trees and game, and every thing that 
luxury could devise. The harem of such a Persian sultan 
was most expensive, being maintained sometimes by the 
revenues from whole cities or provinces. The influence exer¬ 
cised upon the court and the princes by the intriguing wives 
of the kings was often of the most pernicious kind, and in¬ 
volved one part of the empire in war with another. 


CHAPTER Y. 

ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA. 


1. Assyria in its narrower sense was situated on the east 
of the river Tigris, and was consequently a part of Iran; .in 



ASSYRIA. 


71 


a wider sense it also includes Babylonia and Mesopotamia, and 
comprises the countries about the Euphrates and Tigris, which 
latter river forms the boundary between the countries of Iran 
and those of the Semitic race. The banks of these rivers were 
at different times inviting to princes who appeared there as 
rulers or conquerors, to build their capitals on them. The 
northern part of the country, which is inclosed between the 
two rivers, and bears the name of Mesopotamia, is a desert, or 
rather a steppe, w r ell adapted for nomadic tribes; but the 
southern plains of Babylonia, which were intersected by in¬ 
numerable canals for purposes of irrigation, were a country of 
extraordinary fertility and productiveness, and Herodotus 
praises it above all other countries known to him. At present 
those blessed districts have become almost a desert under the 
rude and destructive government of the Mahommedans; but 
the ancient ruins of mighty cities and frontier walls, the 
canals and other means devised for irrigating the country, still 
attest the high prosperity once enjoyed by their inhabitants. 

2. There was a time wdien the Assyrian empire was re¬ 
garded as the most ancient conquering power in the world; 
but of its history, as well as of that of Babylon, only frag¬ 
ments have been preserved to us by Greek writers and in the 
Old Testament; and it is sometimes a matter of extreme 
difficulty to make the profane and sacred authorities agree 
with each other. According to the Mosaic account, Babel 
or Babylon, the capital of the powerful Nimrod, was the head 
of a more ancient empire ; and Assur, proceeding from Baby¬ 
lon, founded Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, which would 
accordingly be a colony of Babylon. Greek authorities state 
the very reverse of this, for they represent Nineveh as the 
more ancient city. But the origin of the Assyrian empire is 
related by them only in mythical legends, which have acquired 
great celebrity, though they can hardly be said to embody 
the ideas which the Assyrians entertained respecting their own 


72 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


early history. According to these accounts, the founder of the 
Assyrian empire was Ninus, who built Ninus or Nineveh, and 
subdued a great part of Asia. His history is connected with 
that of the famous queen Semiramis, who was miraculously 
saved when only a child, and was possessed of extraordinary 
beauty and mental powers. At the time when Ninus marched 
against Bactra she was in the Assyrian army; and when that 
city baffled all his efforts, it was conquered by her prudence 
and valour. The king was thereupon seized with such admi¬ 
ration of the heroine that he made her his wife, in consequence 
of which her previous husband made away with himself. After 
the death of Ninus, Semiramis governed the empire; among 
other cities she built Babylon with extraordinary splendour 
and magnificence, and undertook vast expeditions to extend 
her dominions by conquest. She subdued Egypt and a large 
portion of Ethiopia; but a war undertaken against India with 
an army of more than three millions of men proved unsuc¬ 
cessful. After this she resigned the government to her son 
Ninyas, and disappeared from the earth, taking up her abode 
among the gods. Ninyas, the very opposite of his parents, 
never quitted the city, and spent his whole life in the midst 
of women and eunuchs, and in constant amusements. 

3. Such is the story of the foundation of the Assyrian 
empire, as transmitted by the classical writers of antiquity. 
It is quite clear that we are here in the domain of fable and 
not of history. Ninus is only the personification of Nineveh, 
as Romulus in the case of Rome. The story of Semiramis, how¬ 
ever, is perhaps not entirely mythical. There can, indeed, 
be no doubt that Nineveh was of more recent origin than 
Babylon; but how and when it was founded, and how it 
acquired the dominion of a large part of Asia, are questions 
to which no certain answer can be given. It is equally im¬ 
possible to say how far the Assyrian empire really extended. 
The vast conquests mentioned in the story are beyond all 


ASSYRIA. 


?3 


question greatly exaggerated ; but there can be no doubt that 
Babylon, Media, and Persia were subject to it, and that it 
extended even into Asia Minor. 

Diodorus of Sicily, a writer deriving his information from 
the work of Ctesias, a Greek physician who lived at the 
court of Persia, gives the subsequent history of Assyria in a 
form no less fabulous than its beginning. According to him 
the empire was ruled, for thirty generations after Ninyas, by 
his descendants, who spent their lives in idleness and volup¬ 
tuousness like Ninyas, until Sardanapalus, the last of them, 
even dressed himself as a woman, and acted in a most effeminate 
and unworthy manner, in consequence of which the subject 
nations rose in arms against him, headed by the governor 
of Media. Sardanapalus, at length rousing himself, defeated 
the rebels in several engagements ; but in the end he was 
overpowered, and being unable to defend Nineveh, he caused 
a large pile to be erected, on which he burnt himself, with 
all his treasures, wives, and eunuchs. Nineveh thus fell 
into the fiands of the conquerors, that is the Medes, after 
the Assyrians from Ninus to Sardanapalus had ruled for a 
period of 1360 years. 

4. This account of the Assyrian empire and its thirty 
effeminate kings is as fabulous as the story about its founda¬ 
tion, and the only real historical fact in this tradition seems to 
be, that the end of the empire was as inglorious as its beginning 
had been glorious. The duration of upwards of thirteen 
hundred years assigned to the Assyrian empire is likewise 
more than doubtful, for it is not only opposed to all analogy, 
but to the express statement of Herodotus, according to 
whom the Assyrians had been ruling over Asia for a period 
of five hundred and twenty years at the time when the Medes 
revolted. This latter statement, probable in itself, is con¬ 
firmed by the Armenian translation of Eusebius, in which it 
is stated that Assyrian kings ruled over Babylon five hundred 


74 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


and twenty-six years, and we know that Babylon shook off the 
Assyrian yoke at the same time as the Medes, in the eighth 
century b. c., and both nations had evidently been subject to 
Assyria during the same period. According to this view the 
foundation of the Assyrian empire belongs to the- thirteenth 
century b. c., and its final overthrow by the Mede Cyaxares, 
as we have already observed, to the year b. c. 605, which 
is about three centuries later than the date assigned to its 
destruction by Ctesias. 

The story about the thirty effeminate kings, and the time 
in which they are said to have reigned, is moreover opposed 
to the historical statements of the Old Testament, for here 
we read of Assyrian kings in the eighth century, who extended 
their empire, attacked and subdued Babylonia, Syria, Israel, 
and Phoenicia, and made repeated attempts to conquer Egypt. 
First we hear of king Phul (about b. c. 770), who extended 
his empire westward, and approached the kingdom of Israel, 
which was so terrified that it purchased its freedom for a 
large sum of money. His successor, Tiglath-pileser (about 
b. c. 740), conquered the splendid city of Damascus, laid a 
heavy tribute upon the kingdom of Judah, and transplanted 
many of the conquered people beyond the Euphrates. He 
was succeeded by Salmanassar (about b. c. 720), who invaded 
Israel, and took Samaria after a siege of several years. He 
led the greater part of the Jewish tribes into the interior, 
and took all the important towns of Phoenicia, with the 
exception of Tyre, which baffled his efforts by means of its 
navy. His successor Sanherib or Sennacherib (about b. c. 
712) threatened Judah and attacked Egypt; but sudden 
misfortunes compelled him to return without having effected 
his purpose. After his and Assarhaddon’s reign (from b. c. 
675 to 626), the Assyrian empire sank more and more, in 
consequence of which Cyaxares, king of Media, allied with 
Nabopolassar of Babylon, formed the plan to attack and 


ASSYRIA. 


75 


subdue it. With a great force they advanced against 
Nineveh, and after several reverses against Sardanapalus, 
the last Assyrian king, they succeeded in taking and destroying 
Nineveh, b. c. 605, and thus putting an end to the Assyrian 
empire. As this destruction of Nineveh happened nearly 
three centuries later than the time assigned to it by-Ctesias, 
some writers have assumed two Assyrian empires, and supposed 
that after the first destruction a new empire was formed at 
Nineveh, which lasted until its conquest by Cyaxares. But 
this supposition is without any foundation : there never was 
more than one Assyrian empire, and Nineveh was destroyed 
only once. 

5. The destruction of Nineveh by Cyaxares was no 
doubt complete; and the town of the same name mentioned 
in later times can have been nothing but a small and insig¬ 
nificant place built upon the ruins of ancient Nineveh. This 
last city, situated on the east bank of the Tigris, is spoken 
of by all writers as a place of such vast extent, that modern 
London, with all its suburbs, would occupy no more than 
half its space. This may indeed be exaggerated, or the 
result of misunderstanding; but Nineveh must, at all events, 
have been the largest and most important city of western 
Asia, and its inhabitants must have possessed immense wealth, 
in consequence of the extensive commerce carried on by 
them. Ruins of this gigantic city were unknown until very 
recently, though travellers had observed the high mounds 
covering its site, and suggested that excavations might 
lead to interesting and important discoveries. But in our 
own days, excavations have been made by Botta, the 
French consul at Mosul, and still more extensively by Mr. 
Layard, on the north of the bridge over the Tigris, near the 
modern Mosul. Walls, palaces, and buildings have been 
laid open, which, with their numberless sculptures, reveal to 
us at once the mode of life and warfare of that ancient people. 


76 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


The inscriptions with which these ancient buildings and 
sculptures are literally covered, may one day help to clear 
up all that is yet mysterious in the history of Assyria and 
Babylonia. The sculptures, many of which are now safely 
lodged in the British Museum, consist of representations of 
different kinds, as festive processions with the king, his 
courtiers, eunuchs, priests, and warriors; but especially war¬ 
like scenes, representing battles, sieges, war-chariots, and the 
like. The conquerors and the conquered are generally dis¬ 
tinguished by their features and dress, and the latter seem 
almost in every case to belong to the Semitic race. Both 
men and animals are drawn in these sculptures, not indeed 
without faults, but, on the whole, very correctly, and very 
expressive in their attitudes and movements. They display 
a state of the arts in Assyria, at a period which cannot be 
more recent than the eighth or seventh century b. c., such as we 
could scarcely have expected to find in Asia ; for they surpass 
everything else that is known in the history of Asiatic art. 
The inscriptions on these monuments are all of the kind 
called cuneiform, and when one day they shall be deciphered, 
much new and unexpected light may be thrown upon the 
traditions that have come down to us about the Assyrians. 
The people seem to have been akin to the Arya, but their 
religion was different, for they worshipped idols similar to 
those of the Babylonians, of which we shall have occasion to 
speak presently. 

6. The history of Babylon is closely connected with that 
of Assyria, and the legends of the Greeks, as we have seen, 
carry this connection to the very origin of the two states. 
But the splendour and celebrity of Babylon are undoubtedly 
much more ancient. According to Genesis, it existed even 
before the dispersion of mankind. This view of the great 
antiquity of Babylon is supported by the calculations of the 
Babylonian priests, which were based upon astronomical ob- 


BABYLONIA. 


77 


servations—observations which went back as far as 1903 
years before the time of Alexander the Great. Berosus, a 
Babylonian priest who lived shortly after the time of Alex¬ 
ander, and wrote a history of his country in Greek, also 
derived his information from native records; but unfor¬ 
tunately we possess only a few extracts from this work. 
He began with the cosmogony, which in many respects is 
extremely remarkable, and gave a fabulous account of Baby¬ 
lonian history even during the period before the flood. But 
his later history appears to be thoroughly authentic, and 
from it we see that Babylon was conquered and governed by 
foreigners even before it was subdued by the Assyrians in 
the thirteenth century. Babylon was no doubt one of the 
greatest and most ancient cities on earth. It acknowledged, 
as we have seen, the supremacy of Assyria for a period of 
upwards of five hundred years, after which, about the middle 
of the eighth century b. c., it shook off the yoke. At a 
somewhat later time, it again became subject to Assyria, but 
only for a short period, for its king Nabopolassar assisted 
Cyaxares the Mede in conquering and destroying the Assyrian 
empire for ever, b. c. 605. 

Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar, who reigned 
from b. c. 604 till 561, and is well known from the Old 
Testament, is distinguished in history as a great conqueror, 
who raised the Babylonian empire to the summit of its glory. 
He was engaged in a war against the Egyptian Pharaoh 
Necho, whom he defeated in a great battle near Circesium 
(Carchemish), when he received the news of his father's 
death, which obliged him to return to Babylon. Afterwards, 
he conquered the kingdom of Judah, and led many of the 
most illustrious men to Babylon as captives or hostages, 
among whom was the prophet Daniel. The Jews repeatedly 
revolted, but were reduced each time with unrelenting cruelty, 
and their country was almost drained of its inhabitants. 


78 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


In the end, Jerusalem was laid waste, and the hulk of the 
nation led into captivity. Nebuchadnezzar then directed his 
arms against Phoenicia, which he completely subdued, and 
invaded Egypt, where he plundered the lower valley of the 
Nile. After his death, the kingdom of Babylon began to 
decay; his successors could no longer think of making con¬ 
quests, but only how they could defend themselves against 
the ever-increasing power of the Medes. But it was in vain 
that Queen Nitocris, the mother of the last king, Nabonedus 
or Labynetus, endeavoured to render the country and city 
inaccessible, by making canals, bridges, and lakes; for it was 
only twenty-three years after the death of Nebuchadnezzar, 
b. c. 538, that Babylon was taken by Cyrus. Considering 
this brief duration of the independent existence of the kingdom 
of Babylon, it could scarcely.have attained its celebrity, were 
it not for its connection with Biblical history, and the splen¬ 
dour of its capital Babylon. 

7. Babylon was situated on both sides of the river 
Euphrates, which flowed through the centre. Like most 
other great Asiatic cities, it was built in the form of a large 
square, and the streets intersected each other at right angles. 
Herodotus calls it the most magnificent of all cities known 
to him, and describes its circumference as amounting to about 
sixty English miles; and indeed, modern investigations of 
the site shew that it cannot have been less; but we must not 
suppose that the houses were built close together in rows, as 
in modern cities; on the contrary, there must have been 
many and large districts inclosed within the walls, which 
were not covered with buildings, but were used as gardens, 
groves, and fields.’ The splendour of the city, the wonder 
of ancient historians, probably did not exist previous to 
the last period of independence, but arose in and after 
the reign of Nabopolassar, when it was the capital of a 
large empire, and had stepped into the place of Nineveh. 


BABYLONIA. 


79 


The city was surrounded by a wall of burnt bricks, two 
hundred cubits in height, and fifty in thickness. The royal 
palace was situated on both sides of the river, and the two 
parts were connected by a bridge. Near it were artificial 
terraces, of considerable height and extent, and covered with 
plants and trees of the most various kinds. These were 
what are commonly called the hanging gardens of Semirainis, 
but they were constructed by Nebuchadnezzar, who ordered 
them to be laid out to please his wife Amuhia, a daughter of 
Cyaxares, who could not forget the wood-clad hills of her 
native country. Still more magnificent was the temple of 
Baal or Belus, built in the form’of a square tower of at least 
three hundred feet in height. It consisted - of eight storeys, 
the upper ones being smaller than the lower ones, whereby 
the whole acquired the appearance of a pyramid. Babylon 
sank more through the decline of its industry and population, 
than in consequence of its subjugation by foreign rulers, and 
in the end all its magnificence became one mass of ruins. 
Even in the fourth century of our era, its site is described as 
the haunt of wild beasts, as the prophet had predicted; and 
such is still the case. The extensive mounds of ruins and 
rubbish bear no traces of the ancient magnificence of the 
place. The districts between the several mounts are covered 
with bricks and fragments of pottery. The walls of the city 
have disappeared, but the mounds of ruins have for more 
than two thousand years been used by the neighbouring 
people as quarries, from which they obtained bricks to build 
their habitations; nay, whole ship-loads of them have been 
carried down the river Euphrates. The largest and most 
important of the ruins of ancient Babylon is situated on the 
western bank of the'river, and is called by the Arabs the tower 
or palace (Birs) of Nimrod, and by the Jews the prison of 
Nebuchadnezzar. At its base it is upwards of two thousand 
feet in circumference, and as there are several indications of 


80 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


the pyramidal form of the tower of Belus, modern travellers 
have identified it with that edifice. 

8. Babylon continued for centuries to be visited, admired, 
and described by travellers, while Nineveh was lying in ruins; 
and this is probably the main reason why so little information 
has come down to us about the Assyrians, whereas the man¬ 
ners and peculiarities of the Babylonians are often alluded to 
by the ancients. The language of the Babylonians was the 
Aramaic, a branch of the Semitic; but it is generally called 
Chaldaeic, a name by which the Babylonians as a people, 
also are designated,* though it is more commonly limited to 
that portion of the people inhabiting the district of Chaldaea 
on the Persian gulf. These Chaldaeans were undoubtedly a 
foreign tribe, which had immigrated into Babylonia from the 
north ; in their new country they formed a powerful caste, like 
the Brahmins in India, and most of the Babylonian priests 
appear to have belonged to it. The mention of such a priestly 
caste in Babylonia suggests the probability that at one time 
other castes also may have existed ; but during the last genera¬ 
tions before the Persian conquest, regarding which we have 
authentic accounts, the ancient institutions seem to have fallen 
into decay, and the form of government then was a most com¬ 
plete despotism, as we may see from the descriptions of the 
prophet Daniel. The Babylonians were then slaves, as Asiatics 
have generally been during periods of great prosperity; but 
they forgot their servile condition in their pomp and luxury, 
in their voluptuousness and sensual enjoyments, of which the 
profane as well as the sacred writers draw the most revolting 
pictures. It may safely be asserted that no city ever was 
more notorious than Babylon for immorality and licentious¬ 
ness, and the women were in this respect far worse than the 
men. The causes of this demoralisation, which has made 

* In the Scriptures, the name is Chasdim, which is etymologically 
the same as Chaldaeans. 


BABYLONIA. 


81 


Babylon proverbial, were, on tbe one hand, the unmitigated 
despotism of its rulers, and on the other, the great wealth of 
the people, which was so excessive, that Babylon, as a 
province of Persia, alone furnished one-third of the entire 
revenues of the empire. The sources of this wealth consisted 
in the extraordinary fertility of the soil, and the extensive 
commerce of the people, for which the situation of the city 
on the Euphrates was particularly favourable. That river 
connected the city with the Persian gulf, while roads to the west 
and north put it in communication with the Mediterranean 
and the Euxine. Babylon was the main transit-town of the 
precious merchandise which was brought from India to the 
west, and was chiefly conveyed by sea to the mouth of the 
Euphrates. But besides this, Babylon itself was celebrated 
for the productions of its own industry, consisting of cotton 
and silk stuffs, costly carpets, and tapestry rich in colours and 
workmanship, which were highly prized even by the Komans 
in the distant west. 

9. The Babylonians, or rather the Chaldaeans, were 
equally celebrated as diviners; it was especially by means of 
astrology that they pretended to obtain a knowledge of the 
future; and as this knowledge was believed to be hereditary 
in the caste of the Chaldaeans, their predictions were thought 
to be infallible, and were consequently looked upon with great 
respect. This art of foretelling the future by observing the 
stars, was reduced by the Chaldaeans to a regular system, 
which was called by both Greeks and Romans a Chaldaean 
science; nay, astrologers in general ultimately came to be 
called Chaldaeans in the south of Europe. The belief in the 
possibility of such astrological prophecies arose among the 
Chaldaeans, from their notion of the divine powers possessed 
by the stars—a notion of which indications occur even in the 
religion of Ormuzd. The sun and the moon, being the most 
prominent among the heavenly bodies, were regarded by the 

G 


82 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


Babylonians as the principal divinities, next to whom came 
the planets, or the twelve signs of the zodiac. Bnt these 
divinities were conceived in human forms, and in this anthro¬ 
pomorphism, Baal or Belus, the sun-god, was the supreme 
divinity, whence western nations identified him with the 
Greek Zeus, and the Boman Jupiter or Saturn. Belus was 
further regarded as the founder of the state and city of Baby¬ 
lon, and as the progenitor of the Babylonian kings. 

As Belus was the supreme male divinity, so Mylitta, or 
the moon-goddess, was the highest female divinity. Being 
also the symbol of productive nature, she is often mentioned 
by Greek and Roman writers under the name of Aphrodite 
or Venus. Her worship was connected with most revolting 
obscenity, and seems to have contributed not a little to the 
demoralisation of the Babylonian people. 

10. The five planets were the stars from which, in parti¬ 
cular, the Chaldaeans pretended to obtain their knowledge of 
the future; with them, as with all subsequent astrologers, 
Jupiter and Venus were beneficent powers, Mars and Saturn 
hostile, while Mercury was either the one or the other, accord¬ 
ing to its position. As the priests, by their astrological occu¬ 
pations, were led to observe the stars and their revolutions, 
which, in the plains of Babylonia, with their bright and trans¬ 
parent atmosphere, was easier than elsewhere, they gradually 
acquired real astronomical knowledge, which enabled them to 
calculate with astonishing accuracy the returns of eclipses of 
the sun and moon. In their chronological calculations they 
had lunar cycles as their basis, but they devised means for 
bringing the lunar and solar years into harmony. They knew 
and employed the division of the day into twelve hours, to 
determine which they used a sort of water-clock or clepsydra, 
which was subsequently adopted by Greek astronomers. This 
occupation with mathematical calculations also led them to 
other branches of natural philosophy, such as mechanics; and 


PHOENICIA. 


83 


in western Asia the Babylonians were the first people that had 
a regular system of weights and measures, which was afterwards 
adopted by the Syrians and Greeks. 


CHAPTER VI. 

PHOENICIA. 

1. Phoenicia is the narrow strip of land in the north and 
west of Palestine, extending from the town of Dora in the south, 
to Marathos in the north. On the west it is bounded by the 
Mediterranean, and on the east by mount Lebanon, which 
furnished the Phoenicians with excellent timber for ship-build¬ 
ing. Their coast country nowhere extended more than a few 
miles inland, yet their importance as a commercial people is 
not surpassed by any other nation of antiquity. 

The question as to who the Phoenicians originally were can¬ 
not be answered with certainty, though it is a well-known fact 
that their language was Semitic, and that their whole civili¬ 
sation bore the Semitic character. The Canaanites, for this is 
the name under which the Phoenicians are spoken of in the 
Old Testament, were, according to the Mosaic account, sons of 
Ham, and not of Shem ; whence they would belong to the same 
race as the Egyptians and other southern nations. Greek 
historians also relate that the Phoenicians were a foreign 
people, which had originally dwelt on the Erythraean sea, or 
the Persian gulf. We cannot here enter into an examination 
of this question; but certain it is, that, though they were 
foreign immigrants, they became so completely assimilated to 
the neighbouring tribes, that they cannot be regarded in any 
other light than that of a Semitic people. 



84 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


2. The very nature and extent of the country they inha¬ 
bited obliged them to devote themselves to commerce; and 
the dominion which they were unable to found by extending 
their own country, they established by their numerous colonies 
in nearly all parts of the Mediterranean. Under these circum¬ 
stances, the Phoenicians, though numerically a small people, 
became, by perseverance and energy, the first commercial 
nation in the ancient world, and that, too, at a time when 
Greek civilisation had scarcely commenced its development. 
Commerce and navigation were the only means by which they 
could secure their existence, and the coast they inhabited 
offered the best opportunities, on account of its excellent 
harbours, most of which are now completely destroyed by the 
accumulation of sand. Along their coast they built a number 
of cities, and numerous smaller towns, with which the coast 
was literally studded. Of all the enormous commercial activity 
which must once have reigned in those parts, only few traces 
exist at the present day. Cities and splendid buildings have 
crumbled away, and vast quantities of ruins and numberless 
pillars of granite, porphyry, marble, and glass, have in the 
course of centuries been carried away, or have been used as 
building materials for other edifices. The most ancient among 
the Phoenician cities was Sidon, which was built at a time 
of which history knows nothing. It was the metropolis of 
most other Phoenician towns, and for a long period remained 
the most important and powerful among them, until it was 
eclipsed by Tyre, one of its own colonies. The time of the 
foundation of Tyre is very doubtful, but it certainly cannot 
have been later than the twelfth century b. c. The Tyrians 
themselves afterwards spoke of their own city as more ancient 
even than Sidon; but though this undoubtedly arose from an 
excessive partiality for their own native place, yet it cannot 
be denied that in later times it occupied by far the most pro¬ 
minent position among the Phoenician cities, and threw Sidon 


PHOENICIA. 


85 


into the shade. In this proud position Tyre maintained itself, 
until, in the altered circumstances of the world, it lost its 
independence, in consequence of which its wealth and glory 
vanished. 

3. The sea opened up to Phoenician enterprise the conti¬ 
nents of Africa and Europe, and all the islands of the Medi¬ 
terranean, while the country was connected by roads and rivers 
with the great eastern empires, so that the commerce of the 
Phoenicians was not confined to any one part of the world, 
hut extended over nearly the whole of it. In connection 
with the Jews, we are told that they sailed down the Red sea 
to a country called Ophir, whence, among other valuable 
products, they brought a particularly fine species of gold. It 
is doubtful what country we are to understand by Ophir, some 
believing it to be the south of Arabia, and others India, hut 
the latter seems to be the more probable. It cannot be said 
against this supposition that a voyage to so distant a country 
was too bold an enterprise for the Phoenicians at so early a 
period, for a story related by Herodotus proves as clearly as 
possible that in the reign of the Egyptian King Necho (b. c. 
617-601) they circumnavigated Africa, and thus anticipated, by 
more than two thousand years, the discovery of the Portuguese. 
King Necho, Herodotus says, was the first to prove that 
Libya (Africa) is surrounded by the sea, except the part 
where it is connected with Asia. For he sent out Phoenician 
sailors and ships, • ordering them to return by the pillars of 
Hercules to the Mediterranean and Egypt. These Phoeni¬ 
cians accordingly sailed down the Red sea into the southern 
ocean. Each autumn they landed on the coast of Libya, 
which happened to be near; they then sowed corn and waited 
for the harvest; after reaping the corn they again embarked 
and continued their voyage. In this manner they returned 
in the third year to Egypt by way of the pillars of Hercules. 
They related, that while sailing round Libya, they had had the 


86 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


sun on their right hand. All the objections which modern 
critics have made for the purpose of showing that this narra¬ 
tive is undeserving of credit, are of no weight, and the last 
sentence of the report contains the most irrefragable evidence 
of its truth, for as soon as the sailors had passed the equator, 
the sun must have appeared to them in the north or on their 
right-hand side. But unfortunately this great discovery was 
neglected after it had once been made, and no further advan¬ 
tages were derived from it. The ancient nations that were 
powerful at sea did not consider it degrading to increase by 
piracy the profits they made by trading, and hence we find 
the Phoenicians also indulging in this practice, not only at 
sea, but also on land, for they would sometimes avail them¬ 
selves of a favourable opportunity, and, making a descent upon 
a foreign coast, carry off beautiful women and boys, whom 
they afterwards sold as slaves. This traffic of the Phoeni¬ 
cians in slaves is attested by several passages of ancient 
writers, and also by the Jewish prophets, who complain 01 
Sidon and Tyre having sold the sons of Judah as slaves to 
the Greeks. 

4. No undertaking appears to have been too arduous for 
the Phoenicians, for not only did they navigate the seas in 
the south of Asia, but the pillars of Hercules were no bounds 
to their enterprise. On the west of Gibraltar they founded 
in early times the colony of Gadeira or Gades (Cadix), and 
from it they sailed in the Atlantic ocean as far as the islands 
called Cassiterides (the Scilly islands, on the south-west coast 
of England), whence they brought tin, which was not found 
in any other part of the ancient world, and was indispensable 
as an alloy in founding brass. On these same voyages, they 
probably also obtained amber, which was highly valued and 
used in a variety of ornaments. The country where amber 
jras and still is found in great abundance, is the Prussian 
coast of the Baltic; but it is doubtful whether the Phoeni- 


PHOENICIA. 


87 


cians themselves fetched it from those parts* or whether it 
was brought to them by other merchants: the latter is 
the more probable supposition, for we know that amber was 
conveyed by land to the south of Europe. The Phoeni¬ 
cians were more than ordinarily jealous of competition in 
their commercial enterprises, and endeavoured by all means 
to secure to themselves a monopoly in their dealings with 
distant countries. For this purpose they invented and spread 
abroad numerous tales about the dangers and terrors to which 
their seamen were exposed in sailing through the Atlantic 
ocean. Once, it is said, a Roman merchant-ship followed a 
Phoenician in the Atlantic, for the purpose of discovering its 
secret. But the Phoenicians thwarted the attempt by allow¬ 
ing their own ship to be wrecked in order to draw the Roman 
into the same disaster. The Phoenician captain saved his life, 
and, on his return home, he received from the public coffers 
an indemnification for the loss he had sustained in protecting 
the trade of his own country against foreign competition. 

5. Nations distinguished for commercial enterprise are 
rarely behind hand in manufactures and other industrial pur¬ 
suits, and this rule holds good also with the Phoenicians. 
Even in the Homeric poems the Sidonians are mentioned as 
the authors of works -of art and skill, and many productions 
of Phoenician industry, as their textile fabrics and the purple 
dyes, remained celebrated in antiquity down to the latest 
times. In the art of weaving, the Phoenicians eclipsed most 
of their neighbours, and they were believed to be the inven¬ 
tors of purple dyeing, which was afterwards carried on also in 
other maritime towns of the Mediterranean, as at Tarentum. 
The purple was not one particular colour, but the name em¬ 
braced a great variety of shades, from bright scarlet to black. 
The dye was obtained from a shell fish, which was found in 
abundance in several parts of the Mediterranean and also in 
the Atlantic. The purple of Tyre, however, was regarded as 


88 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


the best, and the cloths dyed in it produced changing colours. 
Vegetable dyes of great beauty and variety were likewise 
produced in Phoenicia. The manufacture of glass is said 
to have been discovered by the Phoenicians through the 
accidental melting of saltpetre mixed with sand. This 
manufacture was for a long time kept secret, to secure the 
monopoly to the Phoenicians. Glass was at first used only 
as an article of ornament, or made into vessels, pillars, and 
similar things, which were very much valued, and formed a 
most lucrative article of commerce. The glass manufactures 
of Tyre, in particular, were very celebrated, and continued to 
flourish even beyond the period of antiquity. This commerce 
and these manufactures account for the immense wealth that 
was accumulated in the cities of Phoenicia. The Hebrew 
prophets give the most graphic descriptions of this state of 
things, but at the same time inveigh against the pride and 
insolence to which the great wealth gave rise. An invention 
more important than all these which some of the ancients 
ascribe to the Phoenicians, is that of the art of alphabetic 
writing. The question, however, as to whether this honour 
really belongs to them, has been much discussed, and the 
result is, that although the Phoenicians cannot be looked 
upon as the real inventors, they undeniably had the merit of 
introducing alphabetic writing into Greece, where the most 
extensive and beneficial use was made of the art, and whereby 
they conferred an inestimable advantage upon all the nations 
of Europe. But we shall have occasion to return to this sub¬ 
ject hereafter. 

6. We possess scarcely any means of forming a correct 
notion of the civilisation attained by the Phoenicians. Few 
Greeks and Romans thought it worth their while to study 
oriental languages, and those who did so, did not enter suffi¬ 
ciently deeply into the study to furnish accurate pictures of the 
life of nations so entirely foreign to them. The literary pro- 


PHOENICIA. 


89 


ductions of the Phoenicians themselves are all lost, nor are 
there any architectural remains that might throw light 
upon their state of civilisation. From some descriptions we 
learn that they were fond of displaying great splendour and 
magnificence in the construction of their temples, which were 
chiefly built of wood and metal. Their introduction of the 
art of writing into Greece, however, shows that they exerted 
some influence upon the nations with which they came in 
contact, though they were not able to stamp their whole 
character upon any one of them. But they themselves did not 
escape the influence of other nations, and even their religion 
and mythology show the effects of their commercial inter¬ 
course with others; for while they transplanted their own 
gods and religious ideas to their colonies and other cities and 
countries with which they were connected, they experienced in 
return a similar influence of others. It is owing to this sys¬ 
tem of exchanging gods and ideas regarding them, that so great 
a confusion has arisen in the accounts of the religions of the 
ancients ; and hence also the facility with which the Greeks 
and Romans identified their own gods with those of foreign 
nations. 

7. The basis of the Phoenician religion, like that of all 
the pagan branches of the Semitic race, was the worship of the 
heavenly bodies; but this worship became coarse and degene¬ 
rate in consequence of the notion which was gradually formed, 
that the stars were persons with all the passions of human 
nature. The great god of the Semitic race, Baal, was called 
by the Phoenicians Moloch; he was the demon of fire, to 
whom, for the purpose of appeasing his wrath, men, and espe¬ 
cially children, were sacrificed in a most cruel and revolting 
manner. The statue of the god was made of brass, and when 
sacrifices were offered, the idol was made red-hot, and the 
wretched victims were placed in its arms to be slowly roasted 
to death. Their mothers, who were compelled to be present, 


90 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


did not venture, from fear, to give utterance to their feelings. 
Such sacrifices of children were offered every year on a certain 
day, at the commencement of great undertakings, and during 
any misfortune by which the country was visited. However, the 
progress of civilisation and the government of Persia, to which 
Phoenicia ultimately became subject, forbade the perpetration 
of such horrors. During the siege of Tyre by Alexander 
the Great, some persons, in despair, proposed to return to 
the practice which had long been abolished, but the magis¬ 
trates prohibited it. It is uncertain whether Melkarth also 
may be regarded as identical with Baal or Moloch. His chief 
temple was at Tyre, but he was worshipped in the colonies 
also. The Greeks partially identified him with their own 
Heracles, from whom, however, they sometimes distinguish 
him by the attribute of “the Tyrian.” Among the female 
divinities, Astarte occupied the first rank; she was the tute¬ 
lary goddess of the Sidonians, and was identified by the 
Greeks and Romans sometimes with Aphrodite or Venus, and 
sometimes with Hera or Juno. 

8. While in their religious views the Phoenicians were 
complete Asiatics, their political institutions appear to have 
been more free and elastic than those of other eastern 
nations, and thus form the transition from Asiatic despo¬ 
tism to European freedom. The country of Phoenicia, small 
as it was, never formed one connected or united state, but 
each city was independent, and was governed by hereditary 
kings, whose authority was probably limited by a council, 
consisting of the noblest among the citizens. In matters 
affecting the interests of the whole country, however, the 
cities seem to have acted as a confederation, and one of them 
took the lead—an arrangement which sometimes may have 
led to the permanent supremacy of one city over the rest. 
But we possess no satisfactory information on these subjects, 
for not only have we no remains of Phoenician literature, but 


PHOENICIA. 


31 


the works of the Greeks who wrote on Phoenician affairs are 
lost. Even the relations subsisting between Phoenicia and 
the empires on the east of it, whose rulers extended their 
conquests to the Mediterranean and coveted the cities and 
fleets of the wealthy merchants, are scarcely known to us. 
About b.c. 730, when King Salmanassar of Assyria invaded 
and subdued Phoenicia, New Tyre alone, which was then at 
the height of its power, resisted the aggressor; this city 
had existed for a long time on an island not far from Old 
Tyre; it had risen to extraordinary prosperity, and seems 
at that time to have exercised a hateful supremacy over the 
other towns, whence these latter even furnished Salmanassar 
with ships to reduce the only place that was fighting for the 
independence of Phoenicia. Even Old Tyre joined the 
enemy. The island city was besieged by Salmanassar for a 
period of five years, but he was unable to take it. At a later 
period, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia, who sent the 
captive Phoenicians and Jews into his own kingdom, was 
likewise unable to take New Tyre, although he besieged it 
for thirteen years after he had reduced all the rest of the 
country. But this last blow seems to have exhausted the 
strength and resources of the place, for soon after, when the 
Persians appeared as conquerors in Western Asia, Tyre, as 
well as the rest of Phoenicia, was forced to submit, and the 
country became a Persian satrapy. In this condition, Phoe¬ 
nicia, like other satrapies, had only to perform certain duties, 
as to pay tribute, and especially to furnish the Persian kings 
with ships for their maritime undertakings, but otherwise the 
cities were governed as before by their own kings or judges 
(suffetes). But their ancient prosperity and splendour were 
gone, and never again became what they had been. During 
this period the commerce of the Phoenicians was more and 
more confined to the eastern parts of the Mediterranean, 
—the Carthaginians and Greeks taking their place in the 


92 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


western parts. Once, in the reign of Ochus, the oppression of 
the Persian governor goaded the Phoenicians into a rebellion, 
which was headed by Sidon; hut the attempt failed, and as 
the king ordered the noblest citizens to he put to death, the 
inhabitants of Tyre set their city on fire, and burnt themselves 
with all their treasures. Tyre, however, continued to exist 
much longer; hut when Alexander the Great overthrew the 
Persian monarchy, and Tyre, from the proud feeling of its 
former greatness, attempted to defy the conqueror, he laid 
siege to it, and after seven months took and destroyed the city, 
b. c. 332. It never recovered from this blow, and, after the 
building of Alexandria in Egypt, its commercial importance 
was completely gone, though it continued in a tolerably pros¬ 
perous condition until a late period of the middle ages. 

9. The colonies which the Phoenicians established in 
nearly all parts of the Mediterranean, and by which they 
not only extended their commerce but diffused their know¬ 
ledge, their language, and their religion, are so numerous that 
it is impossible to suppose that all the colonists proceeded from 
Phoenicia alone; they must have been joined in these enter¬ 
prises by large bodies of Canaanites. We find Phoenician 
colonies in Cyprus, in Crete, in many of the Greek islands as 
far as the coast of Thrace, in Greece itself, in Sicily, Sar¬ 
dinia, the Balearic islands, and especially on the coasts of 
Spain and Africa. The former of these countries attracted 
them by the richness and variety of its natural productions. 
At a time when the west of Europe was known to the Greeks 
only from vague reports, which were worked up by the fancy 
of their poets, the Phoenicians had already discovered the 
valuable metals, especially silver, in which Spain abounded. 
Its inhabitants are saicL to have been so little acquainted with 
their value, that they gave to the Phoenicians quantities of 
silver for mere toys and baubles. Their most ancient settle¬ 
ment in Spain was Gades or Gadeira (Cadiz), founded about 


LYDIA. 


93 


the year b. c. 1100, with a famous temple of the Tyrian Her¬ 
cules. Gades continued, even under the dominion of the 
Romans, to be one of the most prosperous and populous cities 
in the ancient world. But Gades was not their only colony 
in Spain : Turdetania, the western part of modern Andalusia, 
was once entirely under their dominion, and this is probably 
the district called by the ancients Tartessus, which has been 
the subject of so much discussion. Utica in Africa was 
founded about the same time as Gades, but all their colonies 
in Africa were eclipsed by Carthage, founded about b. c. 814 
by emigrant Tyrians. The history of this important city 
will engage our attention in a later part of the work. 


CHAPTER VII. 

LYDIA. 

1. At the time when Cyrus conquered the kingdom of 
Lydia, it embraced nearly the whole of the peninsula of Asia 
Minor, for Lycia and Cilicia appear to have been the only 
parts of it which maintained their independence. The central 
portion of Asia Minor consists of an extensive table-land, 
which affords excellent pasturage for sheep. The southern 
part is occupied by the chain of mount Taurus, which sinks 
down towards the Mediterranean, just as the mountains in the 
west slope down towards the HCgean, and in the north towards 
the Black sea. The delightful climate, the rich vegetation, 
and the great fertility of the valleys and coasts, make Asia 
Minor one of the most beautiful and naturally blessed countries 
in the world. In addition to this, its coasts abound in excel¬ 
lent harbours, enabling the peninsula to become a most 



94 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


prosperous commercial country. But, notwithstanding all 
these advantages, Asia Minor has never occupied that posi¬ 
tion in history to which it might seem entitled. Its civilisa¬ 
tion was an exotic plant rather than the product of native 
growth and development, and after the overthrow of the 
Lydian empire, it was almost always a part of some other 
empire, either Asiatic or European. One reason of this may 
have been the great variety of nations by which it was 
peopled; for the east was occupied by tribes belonging to the 
Semitic race, while the western parts, even before their colo¬ 
nisation by the Greeks, were peopled by a race belonging to 
the Indo-European family ; and many of the smaller tribes in 
the interior, the north and the south, were of unknown origin. 

2. The small district in the west of Asia Minor, forming 
the kingdom of Lydia, appears to have been originally in¬ 
habited by Meonians, a branch of the wide-spread Pelasgians, 
who themselves unquestionably belonged to the Indo-Euro¬ 
pean family of nations. At a later period, about which his¬ 
tory furnishes no information, the Meonians were overpowered 
by the Lydians, after whom the country was thenceforth called 
Lydia, for in the Homeric poems this name does not occur. 
These Lydians invaded the country from some other part of 
Asia Minor, and appear to have belonged to the same race 
as the Carians and Mysians. Their manners and civilisation 
were not very different from those of the Greeks, and in the 
arts of life they were as far advanced as their Greek neigh¬ 
bours. But we know nothing of their language, which must 
have been superseded by the Greek at an early period. 

3. The kingdom of Lydia was governed by two successive 
dynasties, that of the Heracleids, and that of the Mermnadae— 
the former commencing with Agron (about b. c. 1200) and 
ending with Candaules, while that of the Mermnadae begins 
with G}^ges. The earlier dynasty is said to have been gene¬ 
alogically connected with Ninus, the mythical founder of the 


LYDIA. 


95 


Assyrian empire, and to have occupied the throne of Lydia for 
a period of five hundred and five years. Its last king, Can- 
daules, fell in an insurrection of Gyges about b. c. 716. This 
change of dynasty is related by Herodotus in a very romantic 
and poetical story, according to which the wife of Candaules 
compelled Gyges to kill her own husband, and then to marry 
her. It is possible, however, that this change of dynasty may 
have been connected with the ascendancy of the Lydians over 
the Meonians. 

Gyges, the first Mermnad king, who is said to have 
reigned from b. c. 716 to 678, appears, like his successors, as 
a conqueror, who subdued Colophon and all the Ionian and 
AEolian colonies of the Greeks along the western coast of 
Asia Minor. Sardes, with its strong citadel, was the capital 
of the Lydians. The successors of Gyges were Ardys (b. c. 
678-629), Sadyattes (b. c. 629-617), Alyattes (b. c. 617- 
560), and Croesus (b. c. 560-546), under whom the Lydian 
empire was conquered by Cyrus. The history of these kings 
is remarkable, inasmuch as they continued the conquest of the 
Greek cities, and extended their empire also in the east. But 
they themselves also were attacked by repeated inroads of the 
Cimmerians and Treres, nomadic hordes from the north of Asia, 
who ever since the time of Ardys traversed the country in all 
directions, and established themselves in various parts, until 
they were overpowered and expelled in the reign of Alyattes. 
This king appears to have extended his dominion eastward as 
far as the river Halys, where he came into conflict with 
Cyaxares of Media. His successor Croesus ruled over the 
whole peninsula, with the exception of Lycia and Cilicia, 
and appears in the traditions as a wise, mild, and beneficent 
prince; he was beloved even by the Greeks who owned his 
rule, for they were left undisturbed in the internal affairs of 
their cities. He was liberal also towards the Greeks in 
Europe, whose temples he adorned with rich presents, for his 


96 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


wealth was believed to be so immense, that it became pro¬ 
verbial. He was well aware of the danger which threatened 
him from the east, and did all he could to avert it; but cir¬ 
cumstances were unfavourable to him, and his kingdom was 
overpowered by the Persians in b. c. 546. The whole of it 
then became a part of the Persian empire, and the greater 
portion of it remained in that condition until the conquests of 
Alexander the Great. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

EGYPT. 

1. We close our history of the Asiatic nations with a 
sketch of the history of Egypt, partly because the ancients 
regarded that country as a part of Asia, and partly because 
its institutions and its whole civilisation are essentially of an 
oriental character. Egypt, in its; proper sense, is the valley 
of the Nile from the islands of Philae and Elephantine in 
the south, to the Mediterranean in the north. The inhabi¬ 
tants themselves called their country Chemi, and in the Scrip¬ 
tures it sometimes bears the name Mizraim. The Nile, which 
traverses it from south to north, is the only river the country 
possesses, and gives a peculiar character not only to the 
country, but also to its inhabitants, who were and are still 
dependent upon it for all that the land produces. The long 
and narrow valley of the river, which is nowhere broader 
than about eleven miles, is bounded on both sides by barren 
ranges of mountains, and terminates in a deep bay, which, in 
the course of time, has been filled up with deposits, and at 
the head of which the river divides itself into several branches. 
The island, thus formed in what was once a bay of the sea, was 



EGYPT. 


97 


called by the Greeks the Delta, from its resemblance to the 
fourth letter of the Greek alphabet. The valley of the river 
itself is the only part of the country capable of cultivation 
and fit for building towns. The Nile is not only the great 
high road of the country, but also its great fertiliser, by its 
annual inundations of the whole valley, which commence about 
the time of the summer solstice, reach their greatest height 
about the middle of September, and then gradually subside. 
These inundations supply the place of rain during the hottest 
season of the year, and from the rich deposit which the waters 
leave behind, produce a fertility which in ancient times en¬ 
titled Egypt to the appellation of one of the granaries of the 
Roman empire. During the period of inundation the whole 
valley was under water, and those parts into which the waters 
had no natural access, were irrigated by means of canals. 
The cause of these periodical risings of the river is the tro¬ 
pical rains in the mountains of Abyssinia and the interior of 
Ethiopia. This phenomenon, which has no complete parallel 
on the whole face of the earth, could not but exercise a 
powerful influence upon the Egyptians, and their whole mode 
of life; for they had to protect their habitations against the 
ravages of the waters, as well as against the constant en¬ 
croachments of the sand that w T as blown by the winds into 
their country from the west. The activity with which the 
ancient Egyptians had thus to labour for the preservation of 
that upon which their lives depended, slackened in the course 
of time, and modern Egypt is indebted for its fertile soil, to a 
great extent, to the immense works executed by its ancient 
inhabitants. The mountains on the east of the valley of the 
Nile contained the principal mineral wealth of the country, 
and furnished the materials for its numerous and gigantic 
monuments in stone. 

2. The peculiarities of Egypt and its inhabitants have at 
all times had a great charm for foreign travellers, and in 

H 


98 


ASIATIC NATI0N3. 


ancient times especially for the inquisitive Greeks, whose 
earliest historian visited Egypt about the middle of the fifth 
century b. c. The national peculiarities of the Egyptians 
consisted not only in externals, hut also in their whole 
mode of thinking and acting, which presented features not 
met with anywhere else, although we find much also that 
agrees with what is known of other countries. These peculi¬ 
arities must have arisen partly from the nature of the country 
and its climate, and partly from the national character 
of the people. In regard to the last of these points we 
are very much in the dark, the Egyptians, like most ancient 
nations, looking upon themselves as autochthones—that is, as 
sprung from their own soil. Their language, and the innu¬ 
merable representations of Egyptians in all their social rela¬ 
tions and occupations, are our only guides in determining to 
what race of mankind they belonged. All the essentials of 
their language are preserved in the Coptic, the language of 
the Christian population of Egypt, who regard themselves as 
the living representatives of the ancient Egyptians. The 
Coptic has indeed long ceased to he a living speech, and is 
used by the Copts only as their sacred language, just as Latin 
is employed in the Church of Eome ; but the language exists, 
and has been examined by modern scholars. This much seems 
certain, that it has no connection with the languages of the 
Indo-European stock, but some affinity with those of the 
Semitic. Still, however, the resemblance is so slight, that it 
would be hazardous to infer from it that the Egyptians were 
a Semitic race. 

But if we take into consideration the descriptions we have 
of the ancient Egyptians, and the still more authentic infor¬ 
mation which we derive from their mummies, and the repre¬ 
sentations on their monuments, we cannot help coming to the 
conclusion that the ancient Egyptians were a mixed race, 
consisting of different nations. This view is confirmed by the 


EGYPT. 


99 


simple fact that they were divided into castes. The higher 
castes in Egypt, as in India, were descended from a race en¬ 
dowed with greater intellectual powers, as well as with a hand¬ 
somer physical conformation; they belonged, in fact, to the 
Caucasian race, while the lower castes consisted of men form¬ 
ing a kind of transition from the Caucasian race to that of 
the negroes. The higher castes, which are also distinguished 
for their less dark complexion, were no doubt immigrants who 
subdued the native population, though we have no historical 
traces of such an immigration. The mere fact, however, that 
the higher castes consisted of members of the Caucasian race, 
suggests that the invaders came from Asia. There are, more¬ 
over, great resemblances between the institutions and the civi¬ 
lisation of Egypt, and those of some eastern countries, which 
justify the conclusion, that at one time or another the East 
must have exercised a certain influence upon Egypt—an influ¬ 
ence which, according to some, proceeded from Babylon, and 
according to others, from India. 

3. The country in the south of Egypt is often called by 
the ancients Ethiopia, but is not conceived as a territory with 
definite frontiers either in the south or west. The same name, 
however, is sometimes applied to the empire of Meroe, a coun¬ 
try above Egypt, enclosed by two arms of the Nile, whence 
it is called an island. This empire of Meroe was, in the 
strictest sense, a priestly state, for nowhere was the priesthood 
ever so powerful, and nowhere was it so perfectly organised 
as in Meroe. The priests chose the king from among them¬ 
selves ; and, when he incurred their displeasure, he was forced 
to make away with himself. The state, however, was essen¬ 
tially a commercial one, and the commerce was conducted and 
protected by the priests, for its principal emporia were in the 
neighbourhood of temples. Meroe was the country through 
which the productions of the distant lands of the south 
were conveyed to the north of Africa, either by caravans, or 


100 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


by boats on the Nile. This commerce was also carried on 
with Arabia, and through Arabia perhaps with India. There 
are traces leading to the belief, that in very remote times 
Arabia was a connecting link between India and the east of 
Africa, and these have led some historians to consider Meroe 
as the place to which, in the first instance, Caucasian Asiatics 
migrated, and whence they proceeded northward into Egypt. 
The Ethiopians themselves, also, had a tradition, that the in¬ 
habitants and civilisation of Egypt were of Ethiopian origin ; 
and according to another tradition, the ancient Ammonium in 
the Libyan desert, containing the celebrated oracle of Am¬ 
mon, whom the Greeks identified with their own Zeus, was 
partially at least a colony of Ethiopians. It may further be 
observed, that, even at the present day, the country called 
Ethiopia by the ancients, abounds in monuments strongly re¬ 
sembling those of Egypt, and apparently the prototypes of the 
latter. If, lastly, we bear in mind that the civilisation of 
Egypt itself gradually proceeded from south to north along 
the course of the river, it seems natural to suppose that its 
beginnings must have come from a point beyond the southern 
boundary of Egypt. We must not, however, forget that we 
are here dealing with mere probabilities, and that there is no 
convincing evidence either one way or the other. 

4. The life and history of the ancient Egyptians are known 
to us, not through native historians or poets, but through the 
works of Greeks, through the Scriptures of the Old Testa¬ 
ment, and more especially through the sculptured and archi¬ 
tectural works of the people themselves; for those works 
having withstood the ravages of thousands of years, and the 
destructive hand of man, still remain, and bear witness to 
the greatness of the ancient Egyptians, to their skill, their 
arts, and their mode of life. No nation has ever so fully por¬ 
trayed itself in all its pursuits, religious, social, and mili¬ 
tary, as the Egyptians. But Egypt, with all its wonders, 


EGYPT. 


lOt 


was comparatively little known until the end of last cen¬ 
tury, when a new impulse was given to the study of its history 
and its antiquities, by the expedition of Napoleon. The most 
ancient and most remarkable of these monuments are those at 
Thebes, in the upper valley of the Nile. The city of Thebes, 
the most ancient capital of Egypt, was situated on both banks 
of the Nile, and its site is at present occupied by several vil¬ 
lages, from which the ruins derive their names. Travellers 
are inexhaustible in their admiration of the gigantic masses of 
ruins, of the temples, avenues of columns, obelisks, colossuses 
and catacombs, in which the district abounds. The temple- 
palace of Karnak, like some others of these vast structures, 
probably consisted partially of temples, and partially of re¬ 
sidences of the Egyptian kings. This stupendous ruin is con¬ 
nected with another in the village of Luxor by an avenue of 
colossal sphinxes, no less than six thousand feet in length— 
the sphinxes standing at intervals of ten feet from one an¬ 
other, but most of them now covered with earth. The portico 
of the temple at Karnak, to which the avenue of sphinxes forms 
the approach, is generally regarded as the grandest specimen 
of Egyptian architecture: one hundred and thirty-four co¬ 
lumns support the edifice; the twelve central ones are of 
gigantic dimensions, measuring thirty -fo # ur feet in circum¬ 
ference, and fifty-six in height, with capitals so large, 
that one hundred men can comfortably stand together upon 
them. The walls of the apartments and chambers here, 
as in all the other temples and palaces, are decorated with 
statues and figures in relief, painted over with brilliant co¬ 
lours. All these monuments are of the greatest interest, not 
only because they display the state of the arts at a most re¬ 
mote period, but because the sculptures and paintings repre¬ 
sent historical occurrences connected with the founders of the 
monuments. The buildings on the western bank of the river, 
though not equal to those of Karnak and Luxor, are yet among 


102 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


the finest Egyptian monuments. We there meet with the 
palace and temple of Medinet-Habu, and a structure in the 
vicinity called the Memnonium. A plain, not far from it, 
hears the name of the ‘ region of the colossuses,’ from the num¬ 
ber of colossal statues with which it is covered, partly stand¬ 
ing upright, partly overturned, and partly broken to pieces. 
The two largest of them are fifty-six feet high, one of these 
being the celebrated statue of Memnon, which was believed 
in ancient times to give forth a shrill sound every morning at 
sunrise. Not far from these colossal figures, remnants of a 
building are seen, which has suffered much from the destruc¬ 
tive hand of man, and is generally believed to be the tomb of 
Osymandias, mentioned by Diodorus. Most of the tombs, 
however, are under ground, and the necropolis of Thebes, 
extending from Medinet-Habu for a distance of about five 
miles in the Libyan hills, is scarcely less remarkable than 
the temples and palaces of the city itself. The many subter¬ 
ranean chambers and passages form a real labyrinth. The 
walls of these chambers are likewise covered with figures in 
relief, and fresco paintings, in many of wdiich the colours are 
still as fresh as if they were of yesterday. They represent 
the judgment of the dead, their history and occupations, and 
are therefore of great interest to the inquirer into the social 
and domestic customs of the ancient Egyptians. These cham¬ 
bers, moreover, are full of a great variety of utensils and orna¬ 
ments, and rolls of papyrus, recording things connected with 
the history of those buried, or rather preserved as mummies 
in the catacombs. The inhabitants of the village of Gurma, 
at the entrance of the necropolis, have for many years carried 
on a lucrative traffic in the articles found in the necropolis. 
Among the treasures brought to light thence, we may men¬ 
tion some invaluable MSS. of Greek authors, with whose 
works we should otherwise be unacquainted. 

These catacombs, destined for all classes of the people, are 


EGYPT. 


103 


far surpassed in magnitude and splendour by the tombs of the 
kings, which are situated in a separate and dismal place, well 
fitted to be conceived as the abode of tlie dead. Many of 
them have been opened and ransacked. These, and a hundred 
other remains, furnish us with the means of forming some idea 
of the ancient magnificence of that capital of Egypt, and no 
historian or poet could do this more effectually or strikingly. 
The execution of these works required an amount of skill and 
taste which no one would expect at so remote a period ; for it 
is an indubitable fact that the greatest and most important of 
them must have been built long before the year 1000 b. c. ; 
and as Egyptian art was then at its height, we must date the 
beginning of its cultivation many centuries earlier. 

5. It is a matter of the highest interest to determine the 
time when those stupendous structures were erected, for it is 
only when that time is known that we can set the proper 
value upon its productions. This was formerly a matter of 
impossibility, but by a most fortunate and ingenious discovery 
of the present century, the key has been found for deciphering 
and reading the hieroglyphics, or sacred symbols, with which 
many of the Egyptian monuments are literally covered. These 
symbols consist of figures of the most various kinds, as hea¬ 
venly bodies, plants, animals, men, members of the human 
body, utensils, implements, geometrical figures, and fantastic 
forms. About nine hundred symbols of this kind have been 
enumerated, the import of which, with very few exceptions, 
was formerly unknown, although there was no want of in¬ 
genious attempts to decipher and explain them. At length 
the savants of the French expedition found at Rosetta a stone 
(at present in the British Museum), containing a threefold 
inscription, one in hieroglyphics, the second in the enchorian 
or popular characters of the Egyptians, and the third in Greek. 
The stone belongs to the beginning of the second century b. c. 
The Greek inscription, a translation of the hieroglyphic, and 


104 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


especially the occurrence of the name of Ptolemy in it, led 
Dr. Young to the discovery as to the nature of hieroglyphic 
writing, which is partly symbolic and partly phonetic. The 
discovery was carried out to its full extent by Champollion, 
a Frenchman. The expectations entertained by scholars in 
regard to this discovery, however, have been greatly disap¬ 
pointed, for the inscriptions contain no historical records nor 
philosophical or religious doctrines, but are generally only 
pompous dedications referring to the royal founders of the 
monuments. Still these very names of princes, the repre¬ 
sentations of their exploits, and the chronological information 
we derive from them, are results which should not be under¬ 
valued. 

6. All the civil institutions of the ancient Egyptians were 
based on the system of castes, which was fully developed and 
strictly adhered to among them. The detail of the arrangement, 
however, is very uncertain, as our chief authorities, Herodotus, 
Diodorus, and Strabo, do not agree with one another; but still 
they are unanimous in stating t]rat the priests and warriors 
were the two highest and most honoured castes. Strabo 
regards all the remaining people as one mass, while Herodotus 
divides them into five castes, herdsmen, swineherds, tradesmen, 
interpreters, and sailors; and Diodorus mentions only three, 
shepherds, agriculturists, and artizans. The most important 
feature, however, in which all agree, is, that the priests and 
warriors were the ruling castes, and that the rest were subor¬ 
dinate to them. The priests, moreover, ranked above the 
soldiers, so that the intellectual part of the nation was placed 
above that representing the power of the sword. It will be 
remembered that the arrangement in India was of the same 
character. The kings, bearing the title of Pharaohs, were 
hereditary, and when a dynasty became extinct, a new king 
was chosen either from among the priestly or the military 
caste; and in the latter case, he was at the same time solemnly 


EGYPT. 


105 


raised to the rank of a priest by a kind of consecration, whereby 
he was empowered to perform priestly functions. The king’s 
authority was very great, and he was profoundly reverenced 
by the people; but he was bound by a series of very minute 
rules and regulations relating to his official functions, his 
recreations, and even the food which appeared on his table. 
These regulations were framed by the priests, who being at 
the same time the king’s councillors and advisers, watched 
over their observance. Such an arrangement could not fail to 
lead to collisions, and to excite evil passions both in the breasts 
of the priests and in those of ambitious kings. 

7. The caste of priests was divided into several ranks; 
they were either high or low, and were also distinguished 
according to the divinities with whose service they were con¬ 
nected, as well as according to the temples to which they 
were attached. Those belonging to the great temples formed 
different corporations. As the priests were the sole deposi- * 
taries of all knowledge, human and divine, they might also 
be distinguished according to their professions as politicians, 
lawyers, scholars, physicians, architects, &c. They were 
required to be abstemious in their food and drink, and forbidden 
to marry more than one wife ; but on the other hand they were 
all-powerful in the state, their lands were exempt from taxes, 
and they themselves were maintained at the public expense. 

The soldiers, amounting, according to Herodotus, to 
four hundred and ten thousand men, were distributed over the 
different parts of the country, where they possessed estates that 
were likewise exempted from taxes. All the soil of ancient 
Egypt was in reality in the hands of the king and the two 
highest castes, though the citizens of some of the towns also 
seem to have possessed lands within their respective territories. 
Within the caste of artisans or tradesmen, there were, no doubt, 
various subdivisions according to the different trades and occu¬ 
pations. 


106 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


8. The art of war was highly developed among the 
Egyptians, for some of its early kings are described as mighty 
conquerors, and Egypt itself had often to defend its frontiers 
against foreign invaders. The armour and mode of fighting 
of the Egyptians are represented on many of their monuments, 
where the scenes often remind us of the Homeric descriptions 
of the war at Troy. The art of besieging also had made 
much progress, even in the time of the most ancient monu¬ 
ments. The administration of the law was in the hands of 

4 

the priests, who are said to have conducted all trials in writ¬ 
ing. The laws, though some kings had made additions, 
were on the whole very ancient, and were believed to have 
been revealed by the gods themselves. Capital punishment 
was inflicted on murderers (even of slaves), perjurers, false 
informers, and those who carried on any unlawful traffic. 
Cowards and deserters were regarded as dishonoured men. 
The wealth and intelligence of the Egyptians naturally led 
them to commercial pursuits, but their trade was carried on 
by land, by means of caravans, more than by sea, although 
the mouths of the Nile were then more fit for navigation than 
they are at present. . Their commerce is attested by the fact, 
that in some of the most ancient tombs at Thebes a number 
of Chinese vessels with Chinese inscriptions have been found. 
It is, however, more than probable that the commerce was 
carried on by foreigners visiting Egypt, rather than by the 
Egyptians themselves going abroad, for they shunned coming 
in contact with other nations, for which they entertained 
generally a thorough contempt. Their own peculiar institu¬ 
tions, laws, and customs, naturally tended to keep them 
secluded from the rest of the world. 

All the occupations of their domestic life are better known 
to us than those of any other ancient nation, from the numerous 
paintings and representations in their catacombs; and if, along 
with these representations, we had a national literature of the 


EGYPT. 


107 


Egyptians, we should understand that nation more perfectly 
than any other. We see them engaged in all the agricultural 
operations, from ploughing to reaping, in cultivating the vine 
and fruit-trees, in tending their herds and flocks of sheep 
and geese, and in pursuing game and wild beasts with hows, 
arrows, slings, dogs, and even lions, which they were in the 
habit of taming. Bird-catching and fishing seem to have been 
among their favourite out-door pursuits. In other representa¬ 
tions we see them engaged in the pursuits of town life, some of 
which are necessary to support existence, while others supply 
the means of gratifying the love of ease, luxury, or taste. We 
see them working in wood, cutting and removing stones, 
weaving, painting, sculpturing, working in gold, jewellery, 
and the like. Their linens and cottons were excellent, as we 
still see from the cloth in which their mummies are wrapped. 
Glass also was manufactured at an early period. A reed, called 
papyrus, which formerly grew in abundance in the marshy 
districts of the Nile, was one of the most useful productions of 
the country, its root being used as fuel, and the leaves wrought 
into covers, dresses, canvas, and especially paper (named from 
papyrus), which was celebrated in all antiquity, and remained 
a common writing material until the time of the middle ages. 
There can be no doubt that the Egyptians were also acquainted 
with various chemical processes, and in purple dyeing it would 
seem that they surpassed even the Phoenicians. 

Kepresentations of domestic and social scenes are equally 
frequent. The kitchen, as well as the drawing-room, and all 
that is going on in them, are brought vividly before us. From 
these scenes it is pretty evident that the Egyptians were not 
quite so gloomy a people as has sometimes been asserted. The 
halls of the great and wealthy are neither without comforts 
nor elegance, the furniture appears to he rich and costly, and 
some articles are beautiful and in exquisite taste. Games, 
amusements of various kinds, and even bull-fights are figured 


108 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


on their monuments. The feasts and social entertainments 
seem to be very sumptuous, and the guests are anointed and 
waited upon by slaves. Women also took part in these 
social entertainments, which is a proof that in Egypt they 
enjoyed a higher degree of freedom than in other eastern 
countries. It is evident that the Egyptians cannot lay any 
particular claim to temperate habits, for we often see them 
in situations which are by no means pleasing. The enjoyment 
of social meetings is often enhanced by dancers and singers. 
Hence it is not improbable that showing the figure of a dead 
person at banquets may have been intended as much to 
encourage enjoyment as to remind the guests of the transient 
nature of all earthly delights. 

9. But notwithstanding their inclination to enjoy life, 
the Egyptians were a serious and meditative people and 
in one way or another religion was connected with all 
their thoughts and actions. Their religion seems originally 
to have been a kind of pantheism, or a worship of God in 
all his manifestations in nature. This view appears to 
account more satisfactorily for their worship of animals than 
the explanations of the Greeks, according to whom it arose out 
of gratitude towards certain animals on account of their use¬ 
fulness ; for it was useful animals alone that they worshipped. 
The coarse animal-worship of later times was probably only a 
degenerate and corrupt form of what was in its origin a noble, 
though erroneous, idea; and the Egyptians, like some other 
nations, had come to confound the substance with the symbol. 
In Osiris and Isis, they worshipped the fertilizing powers of 
nature, under the names of a male and a female divinity. 
Kneph or Neph was conceived as the spirit of God pervading 
the universe at the creation, while Phtah was regarded as the 
real creator, and Ammon or Amun as the king of the gods. 
The power of evil seems to have been personified in Typhon, 
who in many respects resembles the Persian Ahriman. Among 


EGYPT. 


109 


the animals receiving divine honours in Egypt, we may men¬ 
tion the ox, the dog, the cat, the ibis, the hawk, and some fishes, 
all of which were worshipped in all parts of Egypt; others 
enjoyed only a local veneration, while in some places they 
were regarded as unclean, or were even objects of persecution. 
Thus the sheep was worshipped only in the district of Thebes 
and Sais, the goat at Mendes, the wolf at Lycopolis, the lion 
at Leontopolis, the eagle at Thebes, the shrewmouse at 
Athribis, and others elsewhere. Whoever killed a sacred 
animal intentionally was punished with death j if uninten¬ 
tionally, he might escape by paying a fine. Sometimes even 
bloody wars are said to have broken out between neighbouring 
districts, because an animal had been killed in the one, which 
was worshipped in the other. This strange superstition and 
fanaticism maintained themselves among the natives even 
during the time when the country was governed by Greeks 
and Romans. The prophets of the Old Testament denounced 
the absurd worship of animals, the Persians despised it, and 
to the witty Greeks and Romans it was an object of ridicule. 
And who can wonder, when we are told that, when a cat 
died a natural death, all the inmates of the house shaved their 
eyebrows, and when a dog died, they cut away the hair from 
all parts of their bodies ! These sacred animals, after their 
death, were embalmed, and deposited as mummies in the 
sepulchres of men. In some instances the worship did not 
extend to whole classes or species of animals, but to one 
particular animal, distinguished from the rest by certain 
signs. An animal of this kind was attended to with the 
greatest care, and the priests charged with it were held in the 
highest respect. The most celebrated among such animals 
was the bull Apis, which was kept at Memphis. The animal 
was always black, with a triangular white spot on the fore¬ 
head, and the figure of an eagle on its neck. It was believed 
to confer upon boys attending upon it the power of prophecy. 


110 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


If it reached the age of twenty-five years, it was killed, 
hut otherwise it was allowed to die a natural death. Such 
an event produced general mourning and lamentation, and its 
burial was accompanied by all imaginable pomp and cere¬ 
mony. But the general grief gave way to the most unbounded 
joy«as soon as the priest had discovered (or prepared) a calf 
with the requisite signs, and produced the new god. The 
ancients expressly state that Apis was only the symbol of 
Osiris, whose soul was believed to be in the bull, and to 
migrate after its death into the body of the successor. 

10. This last notion is connected w 7 ith the belief, which 
the Egyptians shared with the Indians, that the soul, after 
the death of the body, migrated into another. The doctrine 
itself, however, was differently developed by the two nations, 
for, according to Herodotus, the Egyptians believed that the 
soul of a man, after his death, had to pass through the bodies 
of all the animals of the land and of the sea, and even through 
those of the birds of the air; and that then, after the lapse of 
three thousand years, it returned into the body of a human 
being. When, notwithstanding this theory of the migration 
of souls, we hear of the belief of the Egyptians in the existence 
of a kingdom of the dead, called Amenthes or Amenti, the 
sojourn of the souls in it cannot have been conceived as per¬ 
manent, and it was probably regarded only as a transition 
state in which the mode of migration was determined by 
Osiris, the judge in the kingdom of the dead. His judgment- 
seat is often represented in Egyptian paintings, and we there 
see the actions of the departed regularly weighed in a pair of 
scales. A similar judgment is said to have takere place in 
Egypt whenever a person had died. On such an occasion, 
any one might come forward with accusations against the 
deceased, and when the charges were proved, the burial of 
the body was forbidden. Even deceased kings had to undergo 
such an ordeal. The priests, it is said, eulogised him, but 


EGYPT. 


Ill 


the assembled people either agreed or expressed their dissent 
by a tumultuous noise, and if the latter prevailed, the king 
was deprived of the customary magnificent burial. This 
regulation, together with the priestly control over the govern¬ 
ment, was probably the reason why few of the Egyptian kings 
made any gross abuse of their power. 

11. To be debarred from honourable burial could not but 
make the deepest impression in a country where the greatest 
care and large sums of money were bestowed upon the burial 
and preservation of the bodies, which were embalmed and 
deposited in the chambers of the catacombs. These mum¬ 
mies, as they are called, were embalmed in a more or less 
expensive way, according to the circumstances of the deceased 
or his relatives. The body was wrapped up in fine linen or 
cotton, decorated with various ornaments, and covered with 
hieroglyphic inscriptions, and finally placed in a coffin or sar¬ 
cophagus. Such extraordinary care bestowed upon the pre¬ 
servation of the body seems to be irreconcilable with the doc¬ 
trine of the migration of souls, as well as with that of a 
kingdom of the dead, unless we assume that the preservation 
of the body was believed to be indispensable to the immor¬ 
tality of the soul. There can be no doubt that the religion 
of the priests differed in many essential points from that 
of the great mass of the people. We have little information 
about the extent and amount of knowledge possessed by the 
Egyptian priests, simply because the country had no national 
literature. The god Thoth was regarded as the author 
of all knowledge, and believed to have invented arith¬ 
metic, geometry, astronomy, and the art of writing. Geo¬ 
metry and astronomy were cultivated by the Egyptians as 
a matter of necessity, in consequence of the annual inunda¬ 
tions, by which the limits of the different lands and estates 
were swept away. The year of the Egyptians consisted of 
twelve months of thirty days each, and five intercalary days; 


112 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


such a year was by nearly a quarter of a day less than the 
ordinary solar year, and in the course of fourteen hundred 
and sixty years of this kind, the difference between it and the 
Julian year amounts to a whole year. This fact was well 
known to the Egyptians, who called that period the dogstar 
period. Whether this astronomical knowledge had been 
gained by the priests themselves, or whether it was imported 
from Babylonia, cannot be determined; certain it is that 
the science made no progress in Egypt, but for many cen¬ 
turies remained stationary at the point at which we first meet 
with it. Such was the case with all the sciences and the 
arts of the Egyptians, among whom everything continued 
to move within certain fixed limits established by custom and 
lawgivers; nay, a physician who adopted a new mode of 
treatment was liable to a capital prosecution, if his patient 
died under it. 

The belief that the god Thoth had invented the art of 
writing, has received some illustration from the discovery of 
the nature of hieroglyphics, some of which are really phonetic, 
or a kind of alphabetic writing, and there can be no doubt 
that the alphabets of the Semitic tribes in Western Asia, such 
as the Hebrew and Phoenician, were only a farther develop¬ 
ment of the foundation which had been laid in Egypt. But 
here too the stationary and immovable character of the 
Egyptians did not allow them to complete what they them¬ 
selves had invented, so that, in the end, they had to adopt 
the alphabet of their neighbours, who had learned the rudi¬ 
ments from them. The probability is, that the Phoenicians 
were the first who evolved a complete system of alphabetic 
writing from the rude beginnings they had learned from the 
Egyptians. Among the latter people, the want of a convenient 
alphabet no doubt contributed towards preventing the for¬ 
mation of a national literature, but their peculiar mode of 
thinking was probably a still more serious obstacle. What- 


EGYPT. 


113 


ever literary productions the Egyptians possessed, may reason¬ 
ably be supposed to have been nothing but dry records of 
facts and doctrines. Oratory and poetry, in particular, appear 
to have been quite foreign to them. The great number of 
musical instruments seen on their monuments leads us to 
suppose that they possessed very considerable technical skill; 
but the state of music among all oriental nations does not 
allow us to assume that they ever advanced beyond the 
simplest melodies. 

12. The arts in which they were greatest, and which 
will secure to them the admiration of all ages, were archi¬ 
tecture and sculpture. The character of the former is mas¬ 
sive, grand, and earnest, and this character, combined with 
the gigantic dimensions of the temples at Thebes, produces an 
effect of sublimity which it is difficult to describe in words. 
The impression of solidity is enhanced by the fact that the 
outer walls rise slantingly instead of perpendicularly, while 
the roofs are completely flat. But all • these temples are 
wanting in the unity of design which distinguishes the temples 
of the Greeks. The interior of the Egyptian temples is gene¬ 
rally supported by numerous columns, whose capitals are 
of the greatest variety—the ornaments consisting mainly of 
productions of the vegetable kingdom. The uniformity of 
the strong w T alls is sometimes relieved by sculptures and 
paintings. 

In middle Egypt, in the neighbourhood of Memphis, we 
meet with the celebrated pyramids, which do not occur in 
upper Egypt, and which were formerly regarded as among 
the greatest wonders of the world. They are structures of 
the simplest form, generally rising from a broad square base, 
and, gradually diminishing, end at the top in a point or a 
small square surface. Their interior is almost a solid mass, 
being traversed only by a few narrow passages and chambers. 
They are found in groups on the elevated plains of the 


114 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


Libyan hills, and the highest occur in the group of Gizeh. 
The loftiest among these, which is about four hundred and 
fifty feet high (each side at the base is about seven hundred 
and sixteen feet), is called the pyramid of Cheops—it 
being believed to be the one whose construction is ascribed 
by Herodotus to King Cheops. The height is about the 
same as that of the highest steeples in Europe, but in mas¬ 
siveness the pyramids are far more imposing. Originally 
the outer sides were covered with polished stones of different 
colours, but these coatings have been taken away by the Arabs, 
and at present not a vestige of decoration is left. Innume¬ 
rable conjectures have been formed as to the purpose for 
which these structures were raised; but the general opinion at 
present is, that they were sepulchral monuments of kings, for 
they stand in the Necropolis of Memphis, and are surrounded 
by numerous other tombs; and in every one of the pyramids 
which have been explored by Europeans, a sarcophagus has 
been found. The date of the foundation of these singular 
mausoleums is probably more recent than that of the Theban 
tombs, which are entirely different. 

13. Sculpture and painting are inseparably connected 
with the architecture of Egypt. The mechanical skill which 
the Egyptian artists possessed is really astonishing, for their 
statues and reliefs are all made of the hardest granite and 
porphyry, and wrought with a neatness and exactness which 
prove them to have been perfect masters. The forms of the 
bodies are strong and massive, and on the whole in accord¬ 
ance with nature, but the anatomy is not correct, and gene¬ 
rally made according to a fixed type. The faces present a 
sort of transition from the Caucasian to the negro race, and 
some are by no means unhandsome; but they are stiff, without 
life or warmth, and generally likewise of a fixed type. The 
statues in a sitting or striding attitude are likewise stiff, and 
nearly always the same. The historical reliefs and paintings 
have more life and animation, and in some of them national 


EGYPT. 


115 


peculiarities are well expressed. The same may be said of 
the domestic scenes; but the highest objects of art appear not 
to have been aimed at. The Egyptian artists were more 
successful in their statues and reliefs of animals than in their 
representations of the human form, and this arose probably 
from the fact that in the former they were less constrained by 
types and conventionalities. The gods are represented as 
beings with human bodies, but with the heads of animals, 
such as those of rams, hawks, ibises, and bulls. The sphinxes, 
on the other hand, have the body of a lion, with a human 
head. This combination was probably intended to indicate 
great strength, which in other cases was expressed by the 
superhuman size of the figure. 

The character of Egyptian art is, on the whole, monu- • 
mental—that is, its main object is to fix that which is conceived 
as a fact, and to transmit it to posterity. The true idea of 
art is neither aimed at nor attained; but the great mechanical 
and artistic skill, which might so easily have led to higher 
developments, remained stationary, like all other branches of 
Egyptian civilisation. 

14. The principal Greek writers on Egyptian history are 
Herodotus and Diodorus, both of whom visited Egypt them¬ 
selves, and collected their information from the priests; but 
their accounts, though agreeing in many points, diverge in 
others so widely, that they almost appear like histories of two 
different countries. In the first half of the third century b. c., 
Manetho, an Egyptian priest of Heliopolis, at the request of 
king Ptolemy Philadelphus, wrote a history of Egypt in 
Greek. As he had no difficulty in gaining access to the 
records kept by the priests, and was also in a position to read 
and understand those documents for the explanation of which 
foreigners were dependent upon others, his work, if it had come 
down to us, would be a far more important and trustworthy 
source of information. But unfortunately the work is lost, 
with the exception of a few extracts, containing lists of thirty 


116 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


dynasties of kings with the years of their reigns; and even 
these extracts are so carelessly made, that in some cases they 
present almost insurmountable difficulties. The most authen¬ 
tic of all the records are the hieroglyphic inscriptions, which 
furnish us with many names and surnames of kings, their titles, 
the periods of their reigns, and their relation to the gods. 
The reading of these hieroglyphic records, in very many 
instances, confirms the statements of Manetho, and thus proves 
this historian to have derived his information from authentic 
sources. The statements of Herodotus and Diodorus, on the 
other hand, can scarcely be reconciled at all with the docu¬ 
mentary history, and seem in most cases to furnish only a 
kind of popular traditions which those travellers heard in 
Egypt. Another very important source of information is the 
books of the Old Testament. 

The chronology of Egyptian history has often been the 
subject of learned discussions. According to the chrono¬ 
logy of Manetho, the foundation of the kingdom of Egypt 
belongs to the year b. c. 3892, and its founder, no doubt a 
mythical personage, was Menes. But it is impossible to take 
the early dynasties as historical. 

15. The history of ancient Egypt is conveniently divided 
into four periods,—1. The Pharaonic period, during which the 
country was governed by native princes, extending from the 
beginning to the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses in b.c. 526; 
2. The Persian period, from b.c. 526 to the conquest of Egypt 
by Alexander the Great in b. c. 332 ; 3. The Macedonian 
or Greek period, from the foundation of Alexandria in 
b. c. 332, to the death of Cleopatra and the conquest by 
Augustus in b. c. 30 ; and, 4. The Boman period, from b. c. 30 
to the capture of Alexandria by Khalif Omar in a. d. 640. 

The Pharaonic period may again be divided into the 
periods of the old, the middle, and the new monarchy. The 
first extends from the beginning to the invasion of the Hycsos, 


EGYPT. 


117 


the second is the period during which the Hycsos reigned in 
Egypt, and the third from the expulsion of the Hycsos until 
the conquest of the country by Cambyses. 

16. The unhistorical character of the old and middle 
Pharaonic periods is sufficiently indicated by the circumstance 
that Egypt is said to have been first governed by gods, spirits, 
demigods, and the souls of the departed. After these there 
follow thirty dynasties of mortal kings, the first of whom was 
Menes. The number of these kings, according to some, was 
three hundred, and according to others five hundred. The 
earliest dynasties present in many respects as yet insur¬ 
mountable difficulties, for it is uncertain whether they are 
to be taken as a series, or whether at least some of them 
were contemporary kings, ruling in different parts of Egypt. 
But the names found in hieroglyphic inscriptions, and identi¬ 
fied with names of kings occurring as early as the fourth 
dynasty, seem to prove that the lists of the earliest human 
dynasties ought not to be rejected as altogether fabulous. 
The twelfth dynasty in Manetho, containing seven kings of 
Diospolis, seems to bear strong marks of historical authenti¬ 
city ; in it occurs the celebrated Sesostris or Sesortasen, who 
is said to have subdued all Asia and Europe as far as Thrace, 
and to have built the Labyrinth. But this dynasty has not 
yet been confirmed by any monuments, and Sesostris pro¬ 
bably belongs to a much later period. The fifteenth, six¬ 
teenth, and seventeenth dynasties are those of the Hycsos or 
Shepherd kings, who are said to have ruled over Egypt for a 
period of five hundred and eleven years. From Manetho, as 
quoted by Josephus, we derive tolerably satisfactory informa¬ 
tion about these Hycsos. In the reign of an Egyptian king 
Timaus, he says, a foreign people (probably nomadic Arabs) 
invaded Egypt from the east, subdued the country without 
difficulty, killed or enslaved its inhabitants, and burnt cities 
and temples. In the Sethroite nome or district they built 


118 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


an immense earth-camp called Abaris, and their capital was 
Memphis. In the end, however, the Egyptians recovered 
their independence: the Hycsos were besieged at Abaris, and 
obtained a free departure from the country, whereupon they 
retired into Palestine. These Hycsos were no doubt a Semitic 
people, and akin to the Israelites; they must have been a 
warlike nation, which at first destroyed the traces of civilisa¬ 
tion in Egypt, until afterwards they accommodated themselves 
to some extent to the manners and customs of the conquered 
people. It was, in all likelihood, during their reign that 
Joseph came to Egypt, and the reception which his people 
met with in Egypt is accounted for by the fact that the 
Hycsos were a kindred race. The new king who u knew not 
Joseph,” and oppressed the Israelites was probably the first 
prince of the native dynasty after the expulsion of the Hycsos. 
The foreign rulers themselves have left behind no monuments 
in Egypt, but the struggles between them and the Egyptians 
are represented on several monuments, in which the Hycsos 
appear as defeated and fugitive barbarians. It was probably 
owing to the vanity of the Egyptians, who did not like to 
own that their country was ever subject to foreign rulers, that 
the priests gave no information about these occurrences to 
Herodotus and Diodorus. 

17. The new monarchy extends from the expulsion of the 
Hycsos or the accession of the eighteenth dynasty down to 
the thirtieth or last, and there can be no doubt that this 
■whole period is in all essential points historical. The expul¬ 
sion of the foreign invaders w T as the commencement of the 
most brilliant period of Egyptian history. The eighteenth 
dynasty, which, like the nineteenth, had Thebes for its capi¬ 
tal, was the period when Egyptian art reached its highest 
point. The names of its kings appear on many monuments 
at Luxor and Karnak, and also on the tablets of Abydos and 
Karnak. The great Kameses of the eighteenth dynasty was 


EGYPT. 


119 


a conqueror who extended his dominions far and wide, and 
received the tribute of many subject nations. In the south, 
Egypt was extended to the second cataract of the Nile, in 
the west to the negro tribes of the interior of Africa, and the 
east was guarded by strong fortresses. Rameses is further 
said to have traversed Syria and Asia Minor as a mighty 
conqueror, and to have advanced as far as the frontiers of 
Persia and the shores of the Caspian sea. Such conquests 
required fleets, and Egypt itself must at that time have 
acquired a naval power, or else have compelled the tribes on 
the Syrian coast to furnish it. The conquests of Rameses 
in Asia can probably not be doubted, but appear not to have 
been lasting, as afterwards we hear nothing of a dominion of 
Egyptian kings in those parts. The struggles against the 
Hvcsos seem to have braced the nation, and enabled it not 
only to crush its oppressors, but to plant its yoke upon the 
necks of others. The great Rameses is probably the same 
king as the Sesostris or Sesortasen of Herodotus and Dio¬ 
dorus. The period during which the eighteenth dynasty 
possessed the sovereignty of Egypt extended from b. c. 1655 
to 1326. 

The history of the nineteenth dynasty, which ruled from 
b.c. 1326 to 1183, is very confused; but Egypt still continued 
to enjoy a high degree of prosperity. Herodotus places the 
kings who built the pyramids, Cheops, Chephren, and Myari- 
nus, several generations after Rameses (Sesostris) ; but al¬ 
though the names, as recent discoveries have shewn, are his¬ 
torical, yet the historian was deceived in the time he assigns 
to them, for they belonged to the fourth dynasty. 

18. After the nineteenth dynasty, the power and pros¬ 
perity of Egypt appear to have gradually decayed, and at the 
close of the twenty-fourth the country was subjugated by the 
Ethiopians, who furnish the twenty-fifth dynasty, consisting of 
three kings. Herodotus knows only the first of them, Sabaco 


120 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


or Sebichos, who, according to that historian, reigned over 
Egypt for fifty years and then quitted it of his own accord, 
whereupon the previous king Any sis, having concealed himself 
all that time, again came forward and occupied the throne. 
After him Sethos, a priest of Pth ah (Hephaestus), usurped the 
sovereignty, and, as might be expected, reduced the power 
of the military caste to the advantage of that of the priests. 
The cause or occasion of this revolution is not mentioned any¬ 
where, but must probably be looked for in the altered circum¬ 
stances of the country, for it had to some extent become a 
maritime power, and the commercial part of the population 
may have supported the priestly against the military caste. 
It was in the reign of Sethos, that the Assyrian conqueror 
Sennacherib (about b.c. 712) threatened to invade Egypt with 
a large army. As the warrior caste bore the king no good 
will, he was in great difficulty in consequence of their refusal 
to serve against the invader. Trusting to a dream, it is 
said, he formed an army of merchants, artizans, and the 
populace, and went out against the enemy. But during the 
night a host of mice injured their bows, arrows, and 
shields so much, as to oblige them the next morning to take to 
flight. These occurrences, though apparently fabulous, must 
have some historical foundation; for we know from the Scrip¬ 
tures that, about the same time, Hezekiah, being hard pressed 
by Sennacherib, sought the assistance of Egypt, and that the 
Assyrian army perished before it was able to take Jerusalem. 
The Scriptures speak of an Ethiopian king Thirhaka, who 
marched out against the Assyrians, and this king is, accord¬ 
ing to Manetho, the third and last king of the Ethiopian 
dynasty, and identical with the one whose name appears in 
the Egyptian monuments as Tahraka. As Manetho does not 
mention either Sethos or Anysis, it is possible that these 
princes may have maintained themselves only in lower Egypt, 
while the upper part was in the hands of the Ethiopians. 


raYI'T. 


121 


19. If there be any truth in the story about a priest 
taking possession of the sovereign power in Egypt, it is 
evident that the ancient constitution of the kingdom must 
have been seriously shaken. The same truth is implied in 
the story of the dodecarchy, which, according to Herodotus, 
succeeded Sethos, and maintained the ascendancy for a period 
of thirty years, from b. c. 700 to 670. This dodecarchy was 
the government of twelve contemporaneous kings, whom the 
Egyptians themselves are said to have appointed ; they formed 
connections with one another, and maintained justice in 
their administration of the affairs of the country. These 
twelve rulers are said to have built the Labyrinth, a little 
above lake Moeris, which was intended to be their common 
place of burial. The remains of this gigantic building, which 
have recently been discovered, show that Herodotus’ account of 
its three thousand chambers is by no means exaggerated. But 
he seems to be mistaken in ascribing to the dodecarchy a 
structure which can scarcely be of a later date than the time 
of the eighteenth dynasty. The dodecarchy is not mentioned 
by Manetho ; but it would be hasty to infer from this, that our 
account of it is altogether a mere fable. The manner however 
in which Herodotus describes the end of the dodecarchy, clearly 
shows that he is relating only a popular legend. The twelve, 
he says, had received an oracle at the beginning of their reign, 
that the sovereignty of the country should in the end belong to 
him who should offer a libation in the temple of Hephaestus from 
a brazen vessel. Once the priest, instead of the usual twelve 
golden vessels, brought only eleven ; Psammetichus, the ruler 
of Sais, then took off his helmet and offered the libation out 
of it. The other eleven princes, alarmed by what they saw, for 
they suddenly remembered the oracle, attacked Psammetichus 
and drove him into the marshy districts of lower Egypt. The 
banished prince, desirous to avenge himself on his colleagues, 
consulted the oracle of Buto, which returned the answer, that 


122 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


he should he avenged by brazen men coming from the sea. 
After a time, Ionian and Carian pirates were obliged during 
a storm to land on the coast of Egypt, and Psammetichus 
seeing their brazen armour concluded that they were the 
men promised by the oracle. He accordingly induced them 
by liberal promises to join him, and with their assistance he 
overthrew his enemies, and made himself sole king of Egypt, 
which he governed from b. c. 670 to 617. 

20. The mere fact that a dynasty of princes acquired 
possession of the sovereignty by means of foreign support, 
opens a new period in the history of Egypt, which had 
hitherto shut itself jealously against all foreign influence. 
During this period, however, Egypt once more displayed, at 
least partially, its ancient power and greatness; but this revival 
was of short duration, for the nationality of the Egyptians had 
grown inflexible in its ancient forms, and was unable to as¬ 
similate the new elements introduced by Psammetichus. 
His object appears to have been the regeneration of Egypt 
by means of Greek civilisation, for to the Ionians and 
Carians who had assisted him he assigned lands on the Pelu- 
siac branch of the Nile, and intrusted to them Egyptian boys 
to be instructed in the manners and language of the Greeks. 
He further intended to raise and strengthen his kingdom by 
encouraging the intercourse between it and foreign countries, 
by opening the ports to foreign merchants, and by extending 
commerce over the whole country. The native militia was 
superseded by regular Greek soldiers, and a portion of the 
military caste, offended at these and other measures, emi¬ 
grated into Ethiopia. He also formed a caste of inter¬ 
preters or dragomans, to assist the natives in their intercourse 
with foreigners. The opposition which these measures called 
forth did not deter him from pursuing the path he had once 
struck into; and both he and his successors, who followed 
the same line of policy, were supported by their foreign mer- 


EGYPT. 


123 


cenaries, who formed the real strength of the Egyptian 
armies. Neither Psammetichus, however, nor his successors, 
interfered with the religion of their subjects; we find them, 
on the contrary, as zealous in their religious observances and 
in maintaining and completing the ancient temples, as any of 
their predecessors. 

21. Psammetichus was succeeded by his son Necho, or, 
as Herodotus calls him, Necos, who reigned from b. c. 617 to 
601. We have already related that this king employed 
Phoenician sailors to circumnavigate Africa.* In his reign, 
Egypt came into conflict with Babylonia, which was then 
rising on the ruins of the Assyrian empire. Judah was at the 
time in alliance with Babylon, and its king Josiah, who opposed 
the army of Necho, was defeated in a great battle at Megiddo 
in b. c. 608. Necho then took Jerusalem, and having ap¬ 
pointed Eliakim king of the country, and imposed an annual 
tribute upon it, he returned to his own kingdom; but four 
years later, when the war with Babylon was continued, and 
Necho had advanced as far as the Euphrates, he was com¬ 
pletely defeated by Nebuchadnezzar in the battle of Carche- 
mish or Circesium, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, b. c. 
604. 

This catastrophe put an end to Necho’s scheme of conquer¬ 
ing Syria, which had already been partially carried into effect 
by Psammetichus. Both rulers had not only been attracted 
by the wealth and prosperity of the Phoenician cities, but were 
guided also by the conviction that Syria and Egypt were of 
the greatest importance to each other for mutual protection. 
Necho also knew that the two countries could not be main¬ 
tained without a fleet, and accordingly had caused numerous 
ships to be built, both on the Mediterranean and on the Red 
sea. In tins he must have been supported by the Phoeni¬ 
cians, with whom he seems to have kept up a good under- 

* See p. 85. 


124 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


standing. It was in consequence of these schemes that he 
attempted to connect the Mediterranean and the Red sea by 
a canal, which undertaking he is said to have left unfinished, 
because one hundred and twenty thousand men lost their lives 
while engaged in the work; but we know for certain, that 
in the reign of Darius, the canal was open for large vessels, and 
traces of it may be seen at the present day. It has now been 
neglected for upwards of a thousand years. 

22. Necho was succeeded by his son Psammis, who 
reigned only six years, from b. c. 601-595, and Psammis by 
his son Apries (the Uaphris of the monuments, and Hophra of 
the Old Testament). The latter reigned from b. c. 595 to 570. 
Pursuing the same policy as his predecessors, he made war 
upon the Phoenicians, and subdued Tyre, Sidon, and Cyprus; 
but these acquisitions were not lasting, being snatched away 
by the Babylonian conquerors. In his reign, Egypt was for the 
first time assailed by its neighbours in the west, and the Greeks 
of Cyrene completely annihilated his army in a battle at Irasa. 
This defeat and the cruelties to which it gave rise, created 
great discontent among his subjects, especially the soldiers, 
who rose against him in arms. Amasis or Amosis, who was 
despatched by the king to pacify the malcontents, was raised 
by them to the throne, and then led the troops against his 
former master, who, being supported only by his brave Ionian 
and Carian mercenaries, while the native troops sided with 
Amasis, was defeated in battle, and afterwards murdered by 
the populace. 

Amasis reigned from b. c. 570 till 526. He was a man of 
low origin, and his previous conduct was not of a kind to 
recommend him to the higher castes, for he is said to have 
been several times convicted of theft. But he possessed the 
affection of the soldiers and the people, and was thus enabled 
to disregard nearly all the rules and ceremonies of the 
priests. He displayed during his reign great shrewdness and 


EGYPT. 


125 


prudence, and though he had dethroned the race of Psamme- 
tichus, he did not break off his connection with the Greeks, 
but, on the contrary, continued to confer considerable privileges 
upon them. His friendship with Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, 
is well known. In his reign Egypt enjoyed a prosperity such 
as it never after experienced under any of its native rulers. 
He died just in time, for his son Psammenitus had scarcely 
been six months in possession of the throne, when Egypt was 
invaded and conquered by the Persians under Cambyses, the 
. son of the great Cyrus, b. c. 526. 

23. Egypt thus became a satrapy or province of the Per¬ 
sian empire, though its internal affairs continued to be managed 
by native kings of the twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty- 
ninth, and thirtieth dynasties. The natural and religious 
aversion subsisting between the Persians and Egyptians, fre¬ 
quently caused the latter to rebel against their foreign oppres¬ 
sors, and this spirit of resistance was fomented by the numerous 
Greek and Jewish settlers in the country. The first great 
revolt broke out in b. c. 487, in the reign of Darius Hystaspis, 
who was thereby obliged to postpone his intended invasion of 
Greece for a period of three years. The rebellion, however, 
was suppressed by his successor Xerxes in b. c. 484. A second 
revolt, under Inarus, in which the Egyptians were aided by 
the Athenians, also proved unsuccessful, after having lasted 
from b. c. 460 till 455. Under Amyrtaeus, the only king of 
the twenty-eighth dynasty, Egypt, from circumstances that 
are not known to us, regained its independence. His sarco¬ 
phagus, after many vicissitudes, is now deposited in the British 
Museum. The last revolt occurred during the thirtieth 
dynasty, in the reign of Nectanebus II. ; but in b. c. 350, 
Egypt was reconquered by the Persians, and the last king of 
that dynasty withdrew as an exile into Ethiopia. The coun¬ 
try now remained subject to Persia, until in b. c. 332 it was 
conquered by Alexander the Great; after whose death it 


126 


ASIATIC NATIONS. 


again became an independent kingdom under the dynasty of 
the Ptolemies,, until in b. c. 30 it was conquered by the 
Romans. But of its history under the Ptolemies and the 
Romans we shall have occasion to speak in a subsequent part 
of this work. 




BOOK II 


HISTORY OF GREECE, MACEDONIA, AND 
THE GRAECO-MACEDONIAN KINGDOMS. 


CHAPTER I. 

GEOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF GREECE. 

1. In passing from Asia into Europe, we first meet, in the 
south-eastern peninsula of the latter continent, with the Greeks, 
or, as they were called by their native name, Hellenes. The 
civilisation of this small but illustrious people spread its mild 
and beneficent influence, more or less, over the whole of the 
ancient world, and in many respects has never been surpassed 
either by ancient or modern nations. Its literature and its 
arts are generally distinguished by the epithet classical—a 
term which also comprises the civilisation of the Romans, both 
Greeks and Romans being, so to speak, plants growing out of 
the same root, and belonging to the same sphere of intellectual 
development, though the Greeks reached a great and decided 
pre-eminence; for the civilization of Greece became the model 
of that of Rome, but was incomparably more refined and varied. 
In Greece we find man endowed with rare gifts and noble 
impulses, which are either wholly denied to oriental nations, 
or accorded to them only in an inferior degree. The Greeks 
•were distinguished by a happy physical organisation, by extra¬ 
ordinary acuteness, flexibility, and versatility of mind, and 
by the power of developing within their own nationality a 



128 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


vast variety of specific forms ; they felt the need, and possessed 
the ability ever to cast off that which had become obsolete and 
antiquated, and to assimilate to themselves that which was 
new and full of life; they had the full consciousness of the 
value of political liberty and independence, and were ever 
striving to obtain and preserve this blessing. Their outward 
eyes were no less keen in observing the forms and beauties of 
external nature, than their mental vision in tracing the rela¬ 
tions subsisting between man and man, between man and 
nature, and between God and man. But as nothing human 
is quite perfect, we must be prepared to meet, in the character 
even of this gifted people, with features which cast a shade 
over their brilliant qualities, and fill our hearts with sadness, 
in the contemplation of human infirmities. First of all, the 
Greeks were pagans, and thereby deprived of that blessed 
feeling afforded by the belief in one God, who embraces 
all his creatures with love and care; they were agitated by 
strong passions and desires, which found vent in the disputes 
among political parties, and among the numerous small states 
and independent communities into which the country was 
divided. This want of union brought about the downfall of 
their national independence much earlier than might have 
been expected from their intellectual superiority. But not¬ 
withstanding these and other drawbacks, the history of the 
Greeks presents so much that is ennobling, elevating, and 
instructive, that we may easily forget the darker sides of the 
picture, and lovingly dwell upon its bright and wonderful 
phenomena. 

2. The name Hellas, by which Greece was called by its 
own inhabitants, was originally confined to a small district of 
Thessaly, whence, in the course of time, it was extended to 
all the countries inhabited by Hellenes, both in Greece proper 
and in the numerous colonies all around the Mediterranean. 
In a more restricted sense, however, Hellas signified the country 


GREECE. 


129 


north of the isthmus of Corinth, extending northward as far 
as the Ambracian gulf in the west, and the mouth of the 
river Peneius in the east. These boundaries of Hellas proper, 
as it is sometimes called, however, do not mark the exact lines 
by which the Greeks or Hellenes were separated from the 
non-Greek or barbarous tribes; for both Acarnania and HStolia 
were inhabited by peoples which are expressly said not to have 
been Hellenes, while, on the other hand, some writers even 
excluded Thessaly from Hellas, extending its boundary in 
the north-east only as far as the Maliac gulf. In the restricted 
sense here described, the southern peninsula of Greece, called 
Peloponnesus, formed no part of Hellas, but being inhabited 
by Hellenes, it was of course as much a part of Hellas, in its 
wider sense, as Attica or Boeotia. The Romans, for reasons 
not clearly ascertained, called Hellas Graecia , and its inhabi¬ 
tants Graeci , and from these Roman names the modern Greece 
and Greeks are derived. 

3. Hellas, then, is the southern portion of the easternmost 
of the three great peninsulas which form the southern extre¬ 
mities of Europe, and among these three Hellas possesses the 
same advantages that make Europe superior to the other 
continents; for although the country itself is but small, in 
fact scarcely so large as the little kingdom of Portugal, it 
has an enormous extent of coast, on account of its numerous 
bays, gulfs, and creeks. In the north Hellas was protected 
by a range of mountains running from west to east, under the 
name of the Cambunian mountains, the eastern part of which 
was the celebrated Olympus. In the west of Thessaly, which 
itself forms a large basin, mount Pindus, the highest in Greece, 
runs from north to south, and near its southern extremity 
branches off, forming the chains of Othrys and CEta. The 
heights of Phocis, Doris, Boeotia, and Attica, also belong to 
the system of Pindus, which even extends to some of the islands 
of the iEgean. Thessaly is separated in the south from the 

K 


130 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


rest of Greece by mount (Eta, which at the same time was 
a protection to the southern countries, so long as the few passes 
of the mountains were well guarded. The most celebrated of 
these passes is that of Thermopylae, consisting of a road lead¬ 
ing between the steep side of mount (Eta and the sea. This 
pass, about five miles in length, was of the highest importance, 
as it formed the only road into the southern part of Greece 
for armies coming from the north, and, being in some parts 
extremely narrow, could easily be defended. At present the 
coast has been extended by deposits from the sea; but the 
district can be easily recognised, and the hot spring, from which 
the pass derived its name, still sends forth its warm sulphu¬ 
reous water. The largest rivers in all Greece are the Peneius 
in Thessaly, with its romantic valley near the mouth, between 
mounts Olympus and Ossa, and the Achelous in the west, 
between iEtolia and Acarnania. 

In the south of Thessaly the peculiar conformation of 
Hellas is most obvious and striking in the extraordinary variety 
of rugged and romantic mountains, some of which are bare, 
while others are clad with rich vegetation. Nature herself here 
seems to render uniformity and the union of several tribes into 
one state impossible. It may be said that this part of Hellas, 
between mount (Eta and the Corinthian gulf, is the country 
of the most striking contrasts, for not only do sea and land, 
mountains and valleys, rugged rocks and fertile plains alter¬ 
nate with one another in richest variety, but two adjoining 
plains are sometimes so different, that in the one the little 
rivers and streams are always filled with water, while in the 
other they are nearly always dry. During the hot season of 
the year, almost all are dried up, but the abundant dew makes 
up for the want of water. The courses of the rivers are very 
short, the country itself being narrow, and surrounded nearly 
on all sides by the sea, which in many places enters deeply 
into the land, and forms large bays. The very form of the 


GREECE. 


131 


country, with its indentations, mountains, and valleys, appears 
to have stamped its character upon the inhabitants, for it pre¬ 
vented their falling into sloth and effeminacy, while it braced 
them, and kept them in a state of activity and watchfulness. 

The climate of this part of Greece produced an equally 
salutary effect; for while the fertility of the country yielded 
everything that was necessary to sustain life and to afford 
pleasure, yet the exertion of man could nowhere he dispensed 
with, so that the love of enjoyment could not be gratified 
without labour, the real condiment of all pleasure. The heat, 
which during the summer season would be oppressive, is 
tempered by the breezes from the sea and the mountains, some 
of which are, during a great part of the year, covered with 
snow. The transparency of the atmosphere and the brilliancy 
of the sun present all the objects of nature to the eye in a 
much purer and brighter light than in the northern parts of 
Europe, and even more so than in Italy. The country produced 
in most parts abundance of grain, wine, olives, and figs; 
but as it yielded nothing without labour, nature herself pre¬ 
vented the Greeks from falling into that state of listlessness 
and indolence which in many Asiatic countries has so materially 
checked the progress of civilisation. 

4. Such is the general character of Hellas proper, and 
its different parts or provinces either combine all these 
features, or exhibit some of them more prominently than 
others. In proceeding from the south of Thessaly, through 
the pass of Thermopylae, we enter the maritime country 
of the Opuntian Locrians, and thence on the south-west we 
reach Phocis, with its renowned Parnassus, on the southern 
slope of which was situated Delphi, celebrated for its ancient 
oracle of Apollo, and regarded by the Hellenes as the centre 
not only of their own country, but of the whole earth. On 
the west of Phocis was the little country of Doris and the 
Ozolian Locrians. Further west we have the rugged country 


132 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


of iEtolia, which impressed its own character upon its inha¬ 
bitants, and Acarnania, which, separated from HCtolia by 
the river Achelous, is washed by the Ionian sea, and forms 
the last Greek country in the west. On turning from Phocis 
eastward, we enter Boeotia, which is divided by mount 
Helicon and its ramifications into two great valleys. The 
northern one is a deep hollow shut in by mountains, which 
is partly filled up by the lake Copais; this lake, however, 
is more like a large swamp, especially in summer, for it is 
only towards the end of winter that it really assumes the 
appearance of a lake. It has outlets in the east towards the 
sea by means of subterraneous passages called c.atabothra. 
Ancient Orchomenos was situated on the border of this lake, 
which sometimes overflowed the country far and wide, and 
was believed to have in very remote times swallowed up 
entire cities. The second or south-eastern division of Boeotia 
formed a fertile plain with its capital Thebes, whose inhabi¬ 
tants were notorious for their fondness of good living. The 
atmosphere of Boeotia was thick and heavy, and the Boeo¬ 
tians were believed to be dull and unintellectual. Boeotia is 
bounded in the south by the mountains Cithaeron and Pames, 
on the other side of which we have Attica, the most memorable 
region in regard to the intellectual life of the Greeks, though 
its soil is by no means as fertile and productive as many 
other parts of Hellas. Its extent of coast is greater than 
that of any other province of Greece proper, and was there¬ 
fore particularly calculated to direct the attention of its inha¬ 
bitants to a maritime life. On its western side, where the 
sea forms the Saronic gulf, we have its capital Athens with 
the port-town of Piraeus. Attica is separated from Pelo¬ 
ponnesus by the sea and by the small country of Megaris. 

5. The great peninsula of Greece terminates in a smaller 
one, Peloponnesus, which, however, is an island rather than 
a peninsula, being connected with central Greece only by the 


GREECE. 


133 


narrow isthmus of Corinth. Nearly the whole of Pelopon¬ 
nesus is, like the rest of Greece, a mountainous country, and 
some of its mountains are of considerable height. Arcadia, 
the central part, is a high, uneven, and rough table-land, 
but contains excellent pasture, whence its inhabitants devoted 
themselves almost entirely to the feeding of flocks. The 
rough climate and their mode of life kept the Arcadians 
throughout the history of Greece in a more primitive state 
than any of the other Greeks. The plateau of Arcadia 
is surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains, which send 
their ramifications into the eastern and southern parts of the 
peninsula. All the mountains of Peloponnesus bear strong 
marks of great convulsions that have taken place in their 
formation, in some parts masses of rocks being piled upon 
one another, while others are distinguished by deep and wild 
ravines. The other countries or provinces of Peloponnesus 
are grouped around the central heights of Arcadia. The 
northern coast land comprises Achaia, Sicyon, and Corinth; 
in the east Argolis consists of a peninsula. In the south 
of Arcadia mount Taygetus extends southward as far as 
cape Taenaron, and divides Messenia from Laconia ; while an 
eastern branch, mount Parnon, running almost parallel to it, 
terminates in cape Malea. Sparta, the capital of Laconia, 
was situated in the broad valley of the river Eurotas, at 
a considerable distance from the sea. The greater part 
of Laconia, being a rough mountainous country, admitted 
of little cultivation, though the valley of the Eurotas 
contained some very fertile districts. Messenia, on the other 
hand, which has many rich plains, was among the most 
fertile parts of Greece. On the western coast, between 
Messenia and Achaia, we have Elis with its fruitful plains 
and its mild delicious climate. Olympia, on the banks of the 
Alpheius, though it was not a city but only a mass of groves, 
altars, temples, a race-course, and other buildings erected foi 


134 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the convenience of the Hellenes assembling there every four 
years for the celebration of the Olympic games, was a place 
of far more importance than the capital, which bore the same 
name as the country. 

6. The numerous islands by which Greece is surrounded 
belong to it in all essential points, for they are of the same 
physical and geological structure, and were at one time, no 
doubt, parts of the continent of Greece, from which they have 
been torn by volcanic or other agencies. The fertile island 
of Euboea stretches along Phocis, Boeotia, and Attica; it is 
traversed by high mountains belonging to the chain of Pindus. 
The same chain is continued in the islands on the south-east 
of Euboea and Attica, and extends as far as Astypalaea; but 
Cos and the other islands in the north and south of it belong 
to Asia. The ancients called the European group of these 
islands the Cyclades (lying in a circle), and the Asiatic 
Sporades (the scattered). The iEgean sea, in which all 
these islands are situated, is closed in the south by Crete, 
the largest of all the Greek isles. As the navigation of the 
ancients consisted chiefly in coasting or sailing across narrow 
channels, these islands were of the greatest convenience to 
the Greeks in their intercourse with Asia, Africa, Italy, and 
Sicily, all of which countries accordingly were colonised by 
them at an early period. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE MYTHICAL PERIOD OF GREEK HISTORY. 

1. The history of Greece from its earliest dawn down to 
the migration of the Dorians, about b. c. 1100, is thoroughly 



THE MYTHICAL AGE. 


135 


mythical, for all the actions of individual men, as well as of 
whole communities, are described as influenced by and inter¬ 
fered with by an imaginary world of gods and beings of a 
higher order. But this very period, which in history is the 
most obscure, has been surrounded by the poetic and imagina¬ 
tive genius of .the Greeks with a lustre quite unequalled in 
the legendary history of any other nation. It was to them 
a period of great and mighty heroes whom they looked 
upon as their glorious ancestors; who were guided in their 
exploits by the gods, or struggled against their oppression 
and persecution ; it was the period of which the events 
were immortalised by poets and artists, and in later times 
believed with the same firmness as the occurrences of well 
authenticated history. It would however be a serious mistake 
if we were to assume that the mythical lays of the ancient 
heroes had no other foundation than the fancy and imagina¬ 
tion of the poets. Poets did not invent the substance of the 
lays, but derived it from the legends current among the 
people ; and it was for this reason that the well-known stories, 
when clothed in poetic language, had such a charm, and 
exercised such an influence upon the Greeks, who derived from 
them their chief mental food and sustenance. Their faith in 
those legends was for a long time very intense, and the recol¬ 
lection of the heroes was kept alive not only in poetry, but by 
relics shown in different places, by their tombs, and temples 
scattered over various parts of Hellas. We must further not 
be supposed to assert that after the Doric migration mythical 
legends all at once give way to history, for real history does 
not begin until the time of which we have contemporary 
records, and that time commences in Greece at a much later 
period than among the Asiatic nations which had a historical 
literature. Historians do not appear in Greece until about 
five centuries after the Doric migration, and during this inter¬ 
vening period between the mythical and truly historical ages 


136 HISTORY OF GREECE. 

the tendency to form myths was by no means extinct; on the 
contrary, the events handed down by oral tradition acquired 
more of a mythical than of a really historical character ; but 
the mythical tendency no longer metamorphosed events in the 
same way as before ; poets did not, until a very late period, 
take their subjects from that intermediate epoch, and conse¬ 
quently no deep interest in the occurrences of that period 
was felt or created. When, therefore, historians afterwards 
arose, the events of that period were either little known or 
known only as popular traditions. 

2. It is the business of the historian to endeavour to 
discover that which constitutes the real groundwork of these 
rich and numerous legends and traditions about the early 
Greeks; but this task is beset with insurmountable difficulties. 
The immense variety of Greek legends so singularly inter¬ 
woven with one another, and often contradictory, present at 
first sight an inextricable chaos, from which it seems impos¬ 
sible to extract anything of historical value. The stories 
about the heroes form the principal part of the mythical his¬ 
tory, but some of them are so much interwoven with fables 
about the gods, that it is impossible to separate the one set 
from the other. So long as the legends about the gods were 
implicitly believed, no inquiries were made, but as soon as the 
faith in the gods disappeared among the better educated 
classes of the Greeks, several modes of explanation were de¬ 
vised. Some considered the myths to be mere allegories or 
symbols, embodying certain physical, ethical, or religious 
truths ; others imagined that the gods had originally been 
great men, as kings and heroes, to whom their fellow-men 
paid divine honours for the benefits conferred upon their 
race. This latter view, though the most foolish and super¬ 
ficial of all, was adopted by some of the most eminent authors 
of antiquity, and has maintained its ground with many even 
in modern times. 


THE MYTHICAL AGE. 


137 


3. Myths are never the result of an arbitrary or fanciful 
operation of the human mind, but are formed, in the early 
periods of a nation's history, instinctively and necessarily, in 
consequence of the manner in which men look at nature and 
the phenomena by which they are surrounded. The laws 
according to which this process took place among the Greeks 
can still be ascertained with tolerable accuracy, from the 
numerous instances which speak for themselves, and from the 
rich literature which reveals to us the peculiar views and 
modes of thinking of that gifted people. Ancient institutions 
and customs, of which no satisfactory explanation could be 
given, were accounted for by mythical stories, in which their 
origin was ascribed to certain occurrences ; facts connected 
with the worship of the gods were metamorphosed into legends 
about their apparitions and interferences in human affairs; 
emigrants, taking with them from their former homes the 
worship of a particular divinity, would naturally form the 
belief, in the course of time, that the god himself had com¬ 
manded them to quit their country, and had guided thejp to 
their new homes. Legends, moreover, which the settlers 
found established in foreign lands, were eagerly caught up 
and combined with those which they brought with them. 
These, and innumerable other circumstances, were the natural 
sources of mythical legends; but it is nevertheless often 
a matter of extreme difficulty in any given case to find the 
right key to the explanation of a myth ; this will be easily 
understood if we remember that a simple legend has often 
been greatly modified and embellished by poets, so that we 
are required not only to divest the legend from these poetical 
additions, but to discover the true foundation of the simple 
legend itself. After the time of Alexander the Great, when 
the creative genius of the Greeks had died away, they them¬ 
selves undertook the task of collecting the mythical legends 
of their nation; and the rich stores of information accessible 


138 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


to them enabled them to reduce the whole mass to something 
resembling a continuous history; but they were ignorant in 
their notions about the nature of mythical legends, whence we 
cannot always place full confidence in their statements, nor can 
we distinguish the original materials which they collected, from 
the additions which they themselves devised as connecting links. 

4. Thus, if we inquire after the primitive inhabitants of 
Greece, we meet with statements which have proved the 
greatest puzzle to all historians that have endeavoured to 
throw light upon the question. The Hellenes, the name 
which subsequently belonged to the whole nation, appear in 
the earliest traditions as inhabiting only a part of Thessaly, 
whence they are said to have spread over the whole of 
continental Greece, and the islands surrounding it. But 
while they were yet confined to a portion of Thessaly, they 
were surrounded on all sides by a great race commonly 
called Pelasgians. Who these Pelasgians were, is a question 
which the ancients themselves were unable to solve, and 
which modern writers have answered in the most different 
ways. This much is certain, that in the remotest ages they occu¬ 
pied the north-western coasts of Asia Minor and nearly the 
whole of Greece and the islands, and that in the historical ages 
they had vanished everywhere, except in a few isolated places, 
where they maintained themselves and continued to speak 
their ancient language. It was this early disappearance of the 
Pelasgians that gave rise to the differences and contradictions 
in the traditions about them, for while some called them auto¬ 
chthones, that is, sprung from the earth itself, others state 
that they had immigrated from abroad, and had led a wan¬ 
dering life. The notion that they were autochthones implies 
no more than that they had inhabited the south-east of 
Europe from time immemorial, that is, probably from about 
the nineteenth century before Christ. The wandering charac¬ 
ter ascribed to them can scarcely be referred to the migrations 


PELASGIANS AND HELLENES. 


139 


that led them into Europe, hut probably arose from the 
tact that, during the subsequent commotions in the countries 
occupied by them, they were expelled, and obliged to seek new 
homes in foreign countries, as, for example, during the changes 
which took place in Greece in and after the Trojan times. 
The most recent ethnological and philological inquiries have 
yielded the following results in regard to this intricate question, 
and we have no doubt as to their substantial correctness. 
The population of Europe immigrated from the East at a 
time which lies beyond all history. The first great body of 
immigrants was in all probability that which peopled the 
larger part of the south-east of Europe, and which we may 
call Pelasgians, for the name is of no consequence. They 
probably crossed the Hellespont, and occupied the countries 
to the south of mount Haemus and the Alps—one branch 
occupying the eastern peninsula of Greece, and the other the 
peninsula of Italy, in which countries they gradually proceeded 
from north to south. Some of these Pelasgians, however, 
appear to have remained in the north-west of Asia Minor, 
extending from the Hellespont to the river Maeander in the 
south. It is self-evident that many of the islands of the 
iEgean were likewise occupied by them. Some few parts of 
Greece appear about the same time to have been inhabited 
by tribes foreign to the Pelasgians. The races which at 
subsequent periods successively immigrated into Europe, and 
occupied the countries north of mount Haemus, were the Celts, 
Germans, and Slavonians, all of which must have proceeded 
from the same great parent stock, as their languages testify ; 
but the affinity among the different tribes of the Pelasgians 
who took possession of Greece and Italy was much greater. 

5. The Hellenes in Thessaly were probably only a dis¬ 
tinct branch of the great Pelasgian race; at least we have 
every reason to believe that in language they differed no more 
than the Goths and Saxons* two tribes of the Germanic stock. 


140 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


This close affinity between Hellenes and Pelasgians also ac¬ 
counts for the fact, which would otherwise be inexplicable, 
that during the extension and conquests of the former/the 
latter so completely amalgamated and united with them, that 
afterwards nearly all traces of the original differences disap¬ 
peared—a result which could scarcely have followed, had the 
two races been quite distinct. As to the state of civilisation 
among the Pelasgians previous to their subjugation by, or 
amalgamation with the Hellenes, it has been asserted that 
they were little better than savages; but we have the 
strongest possible evidence that the whole race, even before 
the separation which led one branch into Greece and the 
other into Italy, had attained possession of at least the 
elements of civilisation. Many words referring to agricul¬ 
ture, the breeding of cattle, and human habitations, are com¬ 
mon to the Sanscrit, Greek, and Latin, and thus prove that 
the things designated by such words must have been known 
to the nations before their separation and dispersion. The 
same fact is implied in various traditions, as, for example, 
that the first town on earth was built by a son of Pelasgus, 
that the most ancient towns and institutions in general are 
referred to the Pelasgians—that they invented a number of 
things required in agriculture, and lastly, that they were the 
first to make use of the alphabet which was introduced among 
the Greeks by the Phoenicians. Other evidences of the pro¬ 
gress made in the arts of civilised life by those earliest inha¬ 
bitants of Greece, exist at this day in many parts of Greece 
and Italy, in the gigantic remains of architectural structures, 
such as royal palaces, treasure-houses, and walls built of large 
square or polygon blocks. These we find in Italy, and in 
Arcadia, Argolis, and Epirus. Even large tunnels and dikes 
are ascribed to them. 

6. Their religion consisted, no doubt, mainly in the wor¬ 
ship of the powers of nature, many traces of which are visible 


PELASGIANS AND HELLENES. 


141 


also in the religion of the Hellenes, though they are more 
numerous in the purer religion of the Italians. Their prin¬ 
cipal god was Zeus, whose most ancient seat of worship was 
at Dodona in Epirus. He there also had an oracle which 
retained its celebrity for a very long period, until in the end 
it was eclipsed by that of Delphi. This male divinity had 
his counterpart in the female Dione, who was his wife, and 
the mother of Aphrodite, the goddess representing love and 
fertility. In some parts, such as the islands of Samothrace, 
Imbros, and Lemnos, in the north of the iEgean, a certain 
mysterious Pelasgic worship continued to exist down to a late 
period. The most remarkable branch of the Pelasgians were 
the Pierian Thracians, who inhabited the coast district of 
Macedonia north of mount Olympus, for mythology tells us 
that there the first poets flourished, such as Orpheus, Musaeus, 
Thamyris, Eumolpus, and Linus, all mythical personages who 
probably never existed; but the legends about them show 
that, according to the notions of the Greeks, poetry had 
been widely and enthusiastically cultivated by the Pelasgian 
Pierians, and had been employed by them for the exaltation 
and embellishment of their religious worship. 

7 . The civilisation thus commenced by the Pelasgians 
entered upon a new stage of development at the time when 
the Hellenes began to spread over central and southern 
Greece. The origin of the Hellenes is connected in the 
fabulous legends with the earliest period of the mythical 
ages, and their ancestral hero is called Hellen, a son of 
Deucalion and Pyrrha, the pair saved from the great flood. 
Hellen had three sons, Dorus, Xuthus, and iEolus, all of 
whom emigrated and took possession of the greater part of 
Greece. Xuthus, from whom no tribe derived its name, had 
two sons, Ion and Achaeus, to whom this honour was assigned. 
In this manner Greek mythology traced the four tribes into 
which the Greek nation was divided, viz., the Dorians, Ionians, 


142 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Acliaeans, and iEolians, to four descendants of Hellen. These 
heroes, like Hellen himself, and their stories, are neither 
historically nor poetically true; the heroes are nothing but 
ethnic symbols and artless personifications to represent the 
whole nation and the branches into which it was divided; 
and the story about them in all probability is one of those in 
which the later Greeks embodied their notions regarding the 
ancient state of things in their .country, whence it cannot be 
regarded as a genuine ancient tradition. Other more ancient 
and more genuine traditions, as those in the Homeric poems, 
confine Hellen and the Hellenes to a part of Thessaly, and do 
not represent them as opposed to or distinct from the Pelasgians, 
but partially connect them, as, for example, when Poseidon 
is called the father of Achaeus and Pelasgus. Herodotus, so 
far from regarding Hellenes and Pelasgians as races opposed 
to each other, calls the Dorians a Hellenic and the Ionians 
a Pelasgian people, so that the Pelasgians are drawn into the 
circle of the Hellenes. The iEolians also are called Pelasgians. 
All this justifies the conclusion that not till several centuries 
after the Trojan times, when the Greeks had become conscious 
of their national unity, did the idea of deriving their origin from 
one common hero, and the several branches from his sons and 
grandsons, present itself to their minds. The reason why 
the Hellenes were privileged to give .their name to the whole 
of Greece, is a subject on which we can only form conjectures. 

8. At a time considerably more remote than the Trojan 
war, in which we find the Hellenes in the north, and the 
Achaeans in the south, the Hellenes, perhaps pressed on by 
neighbouring barbarians, quitted their Thessalian homes, and 

V 

gradually spread over the whole of Greece, subduing, by their 
superiority in arms, the unwarlike tribes of the Pelasgians 
and others with whom they came in contact. If we view the 
state of the country about the time of the Trojan war, we find 
in a part of Thessaly the iEolians, and along with them the 


PELASGIANS AND HELLENES. 


143 


Boeotians and Minyans, who were likewise AEolians; in an¬ 
other part of Thessaly, we find the Achaean Myrmidons or 
Hellenes, while other Achaeans occur in the east and south of 
Peloponnesus. The tw r o races of the Achaeans and iEolians 
are the most prominent during the mythical period, while 
in the historical ages the Dorians and Ionians stand forth as 
the most conspicuous branches of the Hellenic race. The 
Dorians, during the legendary period, inhabited the small 
country of Doris, between mount (Eta and Parnassus, while 
the Ionians were in possession of Attica, Euboea, and the 
north coast of Peloponnesus, which bore the name of iEgialeia. 
The manner in which the Hellenes became the masters of 
Greece was not the same in all parts; in some instances the 
conquered Pelasgians were reduced to a state of servitude, in 
others, the conquerors and the conquered became completely 
united; and it may be assumed that in these latter cases, the 
old Pelasgian population was numerically far superior to the 
conquering Hellenes. This would account for the Ionians 
and AEolians being called Pelasgians, while the Dorians 
remained Hellenes. The civilisation which grew out of the 
Hellenisation of Greece was by no means a new one, but 
rather a continuation of that already commenced by the 
Pelasgians; a fresh impulse only w r as given by the Hellenes, 
themselves a branch of the Pelasgian stock, but “ containing its 
best and purest blood, and destined to unfold the noblest 
faculties implanted in its constitution, and to raise the life of 
the nation to the highest stage which it was capable of 
reaching. ,, 

9. Such were the native elements constituting the nation 
of the Greeks. But there are also traditions stating that 
foreigners from distant countries immigrated into Greece, 
made its inhabitants acquainted with various arts and insti¬ 
tutions of civilised life, and gave their names to cities and 
countries. The most celebrated among these alleged immi- 


144 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


grants are Cecrops, reported to have come from Egypt and to 
have built the Acropolis of Athens; Cadmus, the son of a 
Phoenician king, Agenor, who, when seeking his sister Europa, 
came to Boeotia, and there founded the Cadmea, the Acropolis 
of Thebes (he was also said to have introduced among the 
Greeks the arts of writing and of melting and using metals); 
Danaus, who, with his fifty daughters, is reported to have come 
from Egypt, fleeing from his brother iEgyptus; and Pelops, 
lastly, a Phrygian or Lydian, a son of Tantalus, acquired 
dominion over a large part of Peloponnesus, and gave his 
name to the peninsula. Both the ancients and the moderns, 
until recent times, believed that these traditions were sub¬ 
stantially correct, and that Greece received colonists and some 
important religious and social institutions from the east and 
from Egypt. But in our own days, very few men adhere to 
this antiquated belief. According to the genuine Attic tra¬ 
dition, Cecrops, the mythical founder of the Athenian state, 
was no foreigner at all, but an Attic autochthon, and the 
notion of his being an Egyptian did not become current until 
the fifth century b. c. It originated in the vanity of the 
Egyptian priests, who were anxious to impress upon the 
Greeks that their institutions were all more or less derived 
from Egypt. The story about Cadmus seems to have a 
better foundation, not that a person of the name of Cadmus 
ever lived, or did what tradition ascribes to him; but it can¬ 
not be denied that in the earliest times there existed com¬ 
mercial relations between the Greeks and Phoenicians, and 
it is an undoubted fact that the Greeks derived their alpha¬ 
bet from the Phoenicians. The story of Danaus can be 
.shewn to be of genuine Greek origin, and had originally 
nothing to do with Egypt; it may be traced to the same 
source as the legend about Cecrops. The traditions about 
Pelops are very contradictory, for Homer speaks of him not 
as a foreign immigrant, but as a native prince, and others 


FOREIGN IMMIGRANTS. 


145 


describe bim as an Achaean. The whole legend seems to 
be founded upon some vague recollection of an ancient connec¬ 
tion between Greece and a part of Asia Minor. 

10. But though we must reject these stories in the form 
in which they have been transmitted to us, we need not on 
this account deny that at some remote period adventurers, 
either singly or in bands, immigrated into Greece and took up 
their permanent abode there; we must, however, decidedly 
reject the idea that such adventurers or exiles from foreign 
countries exercised any appreciable influence upon the religious, 
social, or political institutions of the Greeks. An original 
connection between the east and the earliest inhabitants of 
Greece is an established fact, proved by ethnology and philo- 
logy; but the Greek language does not contain a trace of any 
influence exercised by a Semitic people or by the Egyptians. 
In most of the traditions about foreign settlements in Greece, 
it is assumed that its inhabitants lived in a state of wildness, 
and that they received the first elements of civilisation from 
the foreign colonists; but we have seen that these elements 
must have been known to the inhabitants of Greece even 
before their separation from their kinsmen in India and 
Italy. In matters of religion, on the other hand, it is equally 
certain that the Greeks were much indebted to eastern 
nations, but it is impossible to say how much of what they 
possessed in later times was originally the common property 
of all the nations belonging to the same stock, and how much 
was imported at a subsequent period, when the Pelasgians 
and Hellenes were already established in Greece. Whatever 
we may think of these and similar matters, certain it is 
that both the ideas and institutions which the Pelasgians 
brought with them from Asia, as well as those which were 
subsequently imported to them from the same quarter, were 
in Greece so much modified, and so changed in character, 
as to become something quite different. Greek civilisation 


146 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


forms- altogether a striking contrast to that of oriental nations, 
by its freedom from priestly thraldom, and by its active intel¬ 
lectual development in all social and political relations. 

11. If we follow the genealogies of the princely houses 
in the Greek legends, we find that the period from the sons 
of Hellen down to the fall of Troy embraces about six gene¬ 
rations, or two hundred years, from b. c. 1400 to 1200, which 
form what may be properly termed the heroic age of Greece. 
This period is filled with accounts of the exploits of the 
heroes for the protection of the helpless and oppressed, 
against robbers, wild beasts, and monsters; it abounds in 
stories about adventures to satisfy ambition and the desire 
to possess what was deemed most precious. To ransack 
and destroy inoffensive towns, to roam about the sea for 
plunder, and carry away from the coast-districts cattle and 
men, and sell the latter as slaves, were not regarded as dis¬ 
reputable pursuits. But a right feeling of humanity, and a 
sense of awe for the gods, the avengers of all crimes, softened 
and subdued the violent passions of the Greeks of those days, 
who, during that period of chivalrous enterprise, strengthened 
their courage and were prevented by restless activity from 
sinking into barbarism and stolid insensibility. To refuse 
protection and support to a suppliant or beggar, to abuse 
the law of hospitality, was regarded as a grave offence against 
Zeus, the father of gods and men. Such were a few of the 
more prominent features of the Hellenes during the heroic 
period, which exhibit them in a light not unlike that of the 
chivalrous ages in the later history of Europe. Throughout 
that period the Hellenes appear as the ruling class, while the 
ancient conquered population was held in different degrees of 
subjection in the several parts of Greece. 

12, None of the heroic families is more celebrated than 
that of Danaus in Argos, whose great grand-daughter Danae 
became, by Zeus, the mother of Perseus; from this latter was 


HERACLES AND THESEUS. 


147 


descended Heracles, the most illustrious of all the Greek 
heroes, a son of Zeus and Alcmena, the grand-daughter of 
Perseus. The numerous and gigantic exploits ascribed to 
him in the legends cannot have been performed by one man, 
or even by one generation of men. They may be divided into 
two classes, the first embodying all the labours and toils which 
mankind in its infancy has to sustain against nature; such 
are, for example, the stories of his having cleft rocks, turned 
the course of rivers, opened or stopped the subterraneous 
outlets of lakes, and cleared the land of noxious wild beasts. 
The second class of his exploits represents a state of society 
which is the natural result of the preceding one, when the 
different tribes have settled in fixed abodes, and are strug¬ 
gling with one another for possession and dominion. The 
hero accordingly appears as the protector of the weak and 
helpless, and as the chastiser of cruel tyrants. In all these 
rich and varied traditions, Heracles represents and embodies 
the history of two distinct phases in human progress. The 
exploits ascribed to him, especially those performed in foreign 
lands, are probably of foreign, especially Phoenician origin, for 
the Heracles of that nation was worshipped in all their settle¬ 
ments round the Mediterranean, and the stories of his wan¬ 
derings and exploits were incorporated by the Greeks with 
those of their own national hero. 

13. Attica had its own hero in the person of Theseus, to 
whom, likewise, exploits are ascribed which can only have 
been the work of ages. His history, though rich and varied 
in detail, is as fabulous as that of the kings who are said to 
have preceded him. He is described as a son of AEgeus and 
iEthra, the daughter of a king of Troezen. To him are 
ascribed similar adventures and exploits as those related of 
Heracles, and which must therefore be viewed in the same 
light. But he is especially celebrated in Attic story as the 
hero who united the independent towns, or political com- 


148 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


munities of the country, into one state, who divided the 
people into three classes, and who laid the foundation of 
the political constitution of Athens. His story is closely 
connected with that of another hero, Minos, King of Crete, 
who ruled over the sea by his mighty fleets, and levied a 
heavy tribute upon Athens, from which Theseus delivered 
his country by slaying the monster Minotaurus. Minos is, 
like Theseus, described as a wise, political legislator, though 
the laws commonly ascribed to him belong to a much later 
period, being the work of Dorian settlers in Crete, who did 
not establish themselves in the island until the period between 
the fall of Troy and the occupation of Peloponnesus by the 
same race. 

14. We might here enumerate a great many other heroes 
and their exploits, such as the tragic fate of the royal house 
of Thebes, and the story of the Calydonian hunt; but we 
must confine ourselves to a notice of two celebrated expeditions 
to foreign lands, which were conducted by confederate chieftains 
and their followers—we mean the expedition of the Argonauts, 
and that against Troy. The form in which the story of the 
former is usually related runs as follows :—Shortly before the 
outbreak of the Trojan war, Jason, a Thessalian prince, ex¬ 
cited the jealousy of his kinsman, Pelias of Iolcos, who per¬ 
suaded the prince to embark in a maritime expedition full of 
danger, in the hope that he might perish abroad. He was 
to sail to Colchis, on the eastern shore of the Black sea, thence 
to fetch the golden fleece there preserved. A vessel was 
built of unusual size, and, accompanied by a band of the most 
illustrious heroes from various parts of Greece, Jason set sail. 
After many adventures they reached Colchis, and not only 
gained their end, but Jason carried off Medea, the daughter of the 
Colchian king iEetes, through whose assistance he had obtained 
the golden fleece. The return of the heroes was connected with 
as many adventures as their voyage to Colchis. The story of 


THE ARGONAUTS—THE TROJAN WAR. 


149 


which this is an outline, seems to be almost wholly a poetical 
invention: the adventure is incomprehensible in its design, 
astonishing in its execution, connected with no conceivable 
cause, and is attended with no sensible effect. It is impossible 
to conceive whence the Greeks at that age could have acquired 
a knowledge of Colchis, and still more that at that early period 
they should have ventured on a maritime expedition to so dis¬ 
tant a region. The object of the undertaking is still more 
mysterious, and can be explained only by conjectures. The 
story about the fleece itself was, that Phrixus, having been 
rescued from his father's vengeance, had been transported by a 
ram across the sea to Colchis, and that on his arrival there he 
had sacrificed the ram to Zeus, and nailed the fleece to an oak 
in the grove of Ares, where it was carefully kept and guarded. 
The story about the Argonauts does not appear to have any 
historical foundation, nor to be connected with commerce, piracy, 
or discovery, unless it be that a series of maritime enterprises 
have been combined, extended, and embellished by the poets, 
for an audience always ready to listen to accounts of distant 
travels and voyages. It is also possible that the whole story 
merely indicates the beginnings of an intercourse between the 
northern Greeks and the inhabitants of the opposite coast of 
Asia; and it was perhaps not without reason that some of 
the ancients stated that the expedition of the Argonauts gave 
rise to the second of the above-mentioned expeditions, that 
against Troy. 

15. The Trojan war is the noblest and most celebrated 
of all the enterprises of the heroic age, and this renown it 
owes to the immortal poem of the Iliad, the work of Homer. 
The story is briefly this:—Aphrodite, the goddess of love, 
had promised to Paris, the son of king Priam of Troy, the 
most beautiful wife, because he had adjudged to her the prize 
of beauty. This wife was no other than Helen, the daughter 
of Zeus and Leda, who was then married to Menelaus, king 


150 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


of Sparta, and brother of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. 
Paris, when on a visit to Menelaus, violated the laws of 
hospitality by carrying off Helen with many treasures; and 
the Trojans, when called upon to surrender her, refused to 
comply with the request. Such conduct called for revenge ; 
all the chiefs of Greece, looking upon the outrage as com¬ 
mitted against them, united, under the supreme command of 
Agamemnon, for a common expedition against Troy. Al¬ 
though Agamemnon was the king of kings, swift-footed 
Achilles, the son of the goddess Thetis, surpassed him and 
all others in heroic courage and valour. In nearly twelve 
hundred ships the heroes and their followers sailed across to 
the coast of Asia, and besieged the city for a period of ten 
years. The Trojans, among whom Hector, a son of Priam, 
was the chief champion, defended themselves manfully, and 
at times brought the Greeks to the brink of destruction. This 
happened during the period when Achilles took no part in the 
contest, because he thought himself wronged by Agamemnon. 
The Trojans were assisted by auxiliaries from various parts 
of Asia Minor, and even from the far-distant east. The 
great gods also took part in the war, some favouring the 
Greeks and others the Trojans. But in the tenth year of 
the contest, Troy fell through the well-known stratagem of 
the wooden horse, according to the common belief, in the 
year b. c. 1184. 

The story of the war of Troy and its conquest cannot be 
without some historical foundation, although its cause and the 
details related by the poet may be all fictitious. The Trojan 
war, as a general fact, cannot be denied. Attacks may have 
been repeatedly made upon Asia by the Hellenes for plunder, 
or more probably for the purpose of obtaining permanent settle¬ 
ments on the coasts, and it is not impossible that such expe¬ 
ditions may have given rise to a war which assumed, in the 
hands of poets, the form in which it has been handed down 


THE TROJAN WAR. 


151 


to us. Although Troy is said to have been destroyed at the 
end of the war, a Trojan state survived the fall of its capital, 
which was probably rebuilt, for we hear that it was destroyed 
a second time by the Phrygians, a Thracian people who 
entered Asia after the Trojan war. 

16. The stories about the return of the heroes from Troy 
formed a distinct circle of epic poetry, of which the Odyssey 
forms only a small part, and which was full of tragic and mar¬ 
vellous adventures. The consequences of the war were no less 
disastrous to the conquering heroes than to the vanquished, for 
the former found their thrones occupied by usurpers, or their 
kingdoms in a state of anarchy, and many perished on their way 
homeward. In short, all the heroes disappear shortly after the 
Trojan war, and the heroic age comes to its close ; we have 
arrived at the point which forms the transition from one 
period to another entirely new and different. A second 
consequence of the war was no doubt the acquisition by 
the Greeks of a more perfect knowledge of the eastern coasts 
and of the islands of the iEgean. It is not impossible that 
the iEolian colonies in Asia Minor, which are commonly 
said to have been planted about one or two generations after 
the Trojan war, consisted to a great extent of Greeks, who 
never returned home from the Trojan expedition, for those 
colonies claimed Agamemnon as their ancestor. Certain, 
however, it is, that the foundation of the iEolian colonies, on 
the north-western coast of Asia Minor, was the natural 
result of the Trojan war, and of the knowledge which the 
Greeks had acquired of those countries during the progress of 
the war. 

17. We have already spoken in general terms of the 
more prominent features of the heroic age. We shall 
now endeavour to see what more we can learn from the 
Homeric poems about the government, social condition, reli¬ 
gion, and arts during the same period; for it must be re 


152 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


membered that on these subjects the Iliad and Odyssey contain 
information as trustworthy as if they were historical documents. 
Slavery existed in most parts of Greece; slaves were chiefly 
employed in domestic service about their masters and mis¬ 
tresses, in gardening, and attending to the flocks and cattle. 
They were nearly in all cases persons taken prisoners in war 
or bought of pirates, or the children of such persons born and 
bred in the house of their master. We never hear of a whole 
population having been reduced to slavery by conquerors. 
Husbandry was carried on by freemen who served the wealthy 
landowners for hire. These latter formed a higher order, 
distinguished by birth, and generally by valour, wisdom, and 
a love of adventure. They were the nobles or the chiefs 
of the nation—one among whom was the head of all, and 
bore the title of king, for the kingly form of government 
was universally established in Greece during the heroic 
period; but the king was only the first among his equals, 
who assisted him with their counsel. The people in every 
Greek state were divided into gene or clans, which were 
bound together by certain religious observances. Laws, in 
our sense of the term, did not exist—all rights and duties 
being fixed by ancient usage, and confirmed by successive 
precedents. The whole nation consisted of several tribes and 
numerous little independent states, and the legend of the Tro¬ 
jan war presents to us the first instance of a united national 
enterprise. The name Hellenes does not yet occur as a 
general designation of all the Greeks, who are generally 
called Achaei, Danai, or Argives. 

18. The social relations in the heroic age were extremely 
simple. The conduct of women was under less restraint than 
at a later period, and maidens of the highest rank had to per¬ 
form the ordinary domestic duties, down to fetching water and 
washing. A father had the absolute right of disposing of 
his daughter’s hand, and at the marriage both parties made 


SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS. 


153 


presents to each other. Many of the female characters in 
the Homeric poems command our respect and admiration, 
and are among the noblest conceptions of the poet, though 
we can hardly imagine that they are types of the whole 
sex at the time. The food of the Greeks, as at all sub¬ 
sequent times, was of the simplest kind, but singing and 
dancing were among the favourite amusements and ornaments 
of their social gatherings. Excessive drinking is hardly ever 
mentioned. Towards their inferiors the Greeks were kind 
and amiable, and their severity towards slaVes was never 
wanton. In war, however, quarter was not given, unless 
it were to obtain a large ransom, and acts of ferocious cruelty 
were often indulged in. Great care, however, was taken to 
secure an honourable burial for the slain. Conquered cities 
were generally treated with merciless cruelty, the men being 
put to death, and women and children distributed among 
the conquerors as slaves. 

19. The religion of the heroic age was only a further 
development of that of the Pelasgians, and not essentially 
different from that which we find established during the 
historical ages. The Greek strongly sympathised with the 
outward world, and in all the objects around him he found 
life, or imparted it to them from the fulness of his own imagi¬ 
nation. Every part of nature roused in him a distinct sen¬ 
timent of religious awe, and everywhere he found divine 
powers to worship. The complicated system of mythology 
which arose out of this simple worship of the powers of nature, 
was formed partly by a process of personification, and partly 
by raising the local divinities of certain tribes to the rank 
of national gods by connecting and uniting them into one 
great family. These processes were the work of the na¬ 
tional mind of the Greeks, strengthened and guided by the 
poets. Each tribe and city, however, continued to worship 
one or more deities as its special patrons or protectors. All 


154 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the gods were conceived as beings with human forms, and as 
subject to the same passions and frailties as mortals; but they 
were nevertheless believed to punish men for their offences, 
both in this world and in their future state. Prayers and sa¬ 
crifices were employed to obtain their favour, and the more 
precious the offering was, the more pleasing it was thought to 
be to the deity. Hence the sacrifice of human life was the 
highest- oblation. The gods were represented in statues and 
symbols, but we must not believe that these statues or sym¬ 
bols themselves were worshipped as the divine beings; such 
gross idolatry seems to have arisen only in later times, when 
the symbol was confounded with the power symbolised. The 
functions of the priests, both male and female, who were 
generally connected with the worship of some particular 
divinity, consisted mainly in offering sacrifices, though the 
kings and fathers of families might do the same on behalf of 
those whom they represented. The most important branch, 
however, of a priest’s duties consisted in his ascertaining the 
will of the gods and those occurrences of the future which the 
faculties of man were unable to divine. The belief in the 
possibility of obtaining such knowledge gave rise to oracular 
places, the most renowned of which were Dodona and Delphi; 
but many other methods also were resorted to, to discover the 
will of the gods or the decrees of destiny. The awe and reve¬ 
rence for departed great men gradually led to hero-worship, 
which, common as it was in later times, is never alluded to 
in the Homeric poems. 

20. In regard to the knowledge possessed by the Greeks 
during the heroic age, and the arts they cultivated, we find 
that their geographical information was almost confined to 
Greece, the islands of the iEgean, and the north-western 
parts of Asia Minor; all the rest of the ancient world was 
known only from vague rumours and reports, whence the 
poet’s descriptions of foreign lands are full of most marvellous 


STATE OF THE ARTS. 


155 


circumstances. The whole earth is conceived as a plane sur¬ 
face, surrounded by the river Oceanus; the Mediterranean 
was only a depression of the earth's surface, the central point of 
which was Delphi. A vast pit in the earth, called Hades, 
was the receptacle of the departed spirits, and far below the 
earth lay the still more dismal pit of Tartarus. Mount 
Olympus in Thessaly was regarded as the highest mountain 
on earth, and as the habitation of the gods; and the vault 
of heaven was considered to be a solid vault of metal, sup¬ 
ported by Atlas, who kept asunder heaven and earth. 

Navigation was still in its infancy, and consisted mainly 
in coasting or sailing from island to island. The largest 
ships which sailed against Troy, are said to have carried 
one hundred and twenty men, though probably they did not 
really contain more than fifty. Engagements at sea are never 
mentioned. Astronomy as a science can hardly be said to 
have existed. All the Greeks, down to the time of Solon, 
divided the year into twelve lunar months, the defects of 
which were remedied by occasional intercalations. Commerce 
was indeed carried on, but was not held in great esteem by a 
nation which regarded the pursuit of war as more honourable, 
and piracy as more lucrative. Money is not mentioned by 
the poet, so that all commerce must have been carried on by 
barter. The wealthy heroes appear to have lived not only 
in rude plenty, but in a high degree of luxury and splendour; 
but we must remember that the poet, in descriptions of this 
kind, was not obliged always to adhere strictly to the real 
state of things. The arts amongst the Greeks, if compared 
with those of eastern nations, can scarcely be said to have 
advanced beyond a state of infancy. 

The art gf war was in a similar condition. In the Iliad 
we hear much of the combats of chiefs, but little or nothing 
of engagements of the masses; and the contests are decided 
by the valour of individual heroes, or by the interposition of 


156 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the gods. The art of besieging a town seems to have been 
utterly unknown. 

21. Although the poems bearing the name of Homer are 
the most ancient in European literature, yet they are by no 
means the first attempts that were made in poetry. The 
Homeric poems themselves furnish evidence of its having been 
cultivated before the Iliad and Odyssey were composed. The 
poet or minstrel in the heroic age was held in the highest 
honour by the chiefs and heroes j his presence was welcomed 
at all their feasts as that of a divinely inspired personage, for it 
was the poet who exalted and embellished the exploits of the 
heroes, whose deeds formed his principal themes. Another kind 
of poetry consisted of religious hymns to sooth the anger or win 
the favour of the gods. Music was always, and dancing occa¬ 
sionally, united with the recital of poetry. In connection with 
this early poetry, we must consider the art of writing which 
had been introduced among the Greeks at an early period 
by the Phoenicians. Homer himself does not distinctly 
allude to it in any part of his poems, though it ought 
not to be inferred from this that it was unknown in his time. 
As to whether the Homeric poems were originally composed 
in writing, is a question which has been much discussed in 
modern times, though it is highly probable that at first they 
were not committed to writing, but composed by the poet, 
and retained in his memory, and that for a considerable time 
they were propagated only by oral tradition. No one now 
doubts that the Iliad is substantially the work of one genius, 
but it is more doubtful as to whether both the Iliad and the 
Odyssey are the productions of the same poet. The time 
in which Homer himself is believed to have lived is separated 
by several generations from the Trojan war. Hesiod, some 
of whose productions have come down to our time, is a poet 
of a somewhat later period than Homer, 


\ 


157 


; CHAPTER III. 

HISTORY OF THE DORIC STATES FROM THE RETURN OF THE 
HERACLEIDS, DOWN TO THE END OF THE SECOND MESSE- 
NIAN WAR. 

1. About sixty years after the fall of Troy, during which 
period no change is recorded in the history of Greece, great 
commotions arose in the country in consequence of immigra¬ 
tions from the north. The first of these is the immigration 
of the Thessalians from Epirus into the country afterwards 
called Thessaly, in consequence of which the original inhabi¬ 
tants, as the Boeotians and Achaeans, were partly reduced to 
a state of servitude, and partly compelled to emigrate. The 
Boeotians took forcible possession of the country, subsequently 
called after them Boeotia. Here again the Cadmeans and 
Minyans being driven from their homes, and joined by 
Achaeans from Peloponnesus, are said to have crossed the 
iEgean, and established in the north-west of Asia Minor the 
settlements known under the name of the iEolian colonies. 
But it has already been remarked* that these colonies pro¬ 
bably were in a closer connection with the expedition against 
Troy than this tradition seems to indicate. 

A much more important movement was that occasioned 
by the migration of the Dorians from their little country on 
the north of mount Parnassus to Peloponnesus, of which they 
conquered the fairest provinces. The fact of this migration, 
which is generally assigned to the year b. c. 1104, cannot be 
doubted, although there are questions connected with it which 
cannot be answered in a satisfactory manner. First of all, it 
is hardly conceivable that the little country afterwards known 
by the name of Doris should have sent forth bands conquering 
nearly the whole of Peloponnesus, although we may admit 

* P. 151. 


158 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


that the conquerors in this, as in many other cases, were far 
less numerous than the conquered. Secondly, the manner in 
which the descendants of Heracles are mixed up with the 
migration is altogether fabulous. The consequence of this 
migration however was, that the population of the peninsula 
changed its character; the hardy Dorians either crushed the ori¬ 
ginal inhabitants and reduced them to a state of servitude, or 
expelled them and forced them to seek new homes in foreign 
lands. The mountainous country of Arcadia, inhabited from 
time immemorial by Pelasgians, remained free, though its 
population, being surrounded on all sides by Dorian Hellenes, 
gradually lost their primitive character, and became Hellenes. 
The cause of the migration was intimately connected in the 
tradition with the story about the descendants of Heracles. 
They had, it is said, a legitimate claim to the succession to 
the throne of Argos, and made repeated attempts by force of 
arms to gain possession of it, until at length the three 
brothers Aristodemus, Temenus, and Cresphontes, supported 
by Dorians, iEtolians, and Locrians, crossed the entrance of 
the Corinthian gulf at Naupactus, and having conquered 
Tisamenus, a grandson of Agamemnon, divided the best por¬ 
tions of Peloponnesus among themselves. 

2. Oxylus, an iEtolian chief who had guided the in¬ 
vaders, claimed and obtained as his share in the conquest the 
fertile country of Elis, which he is said to have governed wisely 
and mildly, taking only a portion of the land for his followers, 
and leaving the remainder in the hands of the original inhabi¬ 
tants. Tisamenus, with many of his Achaean followers, at¬ 
tempted to obtain peaceful settlements among the Ionians on 
the north coast of Peloponnesus, but failing in this, he over¬ 
came them in a battle, and forced them to quit their 
country. Ionia henceforth bore the name of Achaia, and 
the exiled IoniaUs found refuge among their kinsmen in 
Attica; but as that country was too small, the Ionians, ac- 


PELOPONNESUS CONQUERED BY THE DORIANS. 


159 


companied by numerous other adventurers, emigrated to the 
western coast of Asia Minor, where they founded what are 
called the Ionian colonies. In the meantime the Heracleid 
chiefs were engaged in dividing the conquest among them¬ 
selves. Eurysthenes and Procles, the twin-sons of Aristode- 
mus, obtained Laconia, Temenus Argos, and Cresphontes 
Messenia. The conquest thus described in the traditions 
cannot possibly have been accomplished at once, or even 
within a short period. It is well known that Argos was not 
conquered until after a long protracted war. Pylos, in Mes¬ 
senia, even after the conquest of the rest of the country, was 
for centuries ruled by the descendants of its ancient king 
Neleus. In Laconia the Dorian conquerors are said to have 
met with little resistance. Eurysthenes and Procles, who 
fixed their residence at Sparta, are reported to have allowed 
the conquered Achaeans the same rights as the conquering 
Dorians; but Agis, the successor of Eurysthenes, reduced the 
Achaeans to the condition of subjects, and all yielded except 
the inhabitants of the town of Helos, who, however, were 
compelled to submit, and lost not only their political inde¬ 
pendence, but their personal liberty, giving rise and name to 
the class of serfs called Helots. In this story also the vanity 
of the conquerors is but too apparent, and we know on very 
good authority that Amyclae, which is said to have capitu¬ 
lated at once, remained an independent little state in Laconia 
for a period of nearly three hundred years. Helos seems to 
have maintained its independence even later, and it is in 
short more than probable that the Dorians in Laconia as well 
as elsewhere had to struggle for a long period before they 
were complete masters of the countries once occupied by the 
Achaeans. A little later than the invasion of Peloponnesus, 
Corinth also was conquered by a Heracleid of the name of 
Aletes accompanied by Dorian adventurers, and the race of 
Sisyphus was dethroned. This event brought the conquering 


160 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Dorians into conflict with Attica, which was then governed 
by Codrus, a son of Melanthus. The Dorians, in consequence 
of the wars and their devastations, it is said, suffering from 
scarcity in their newly conquered countries, resolved upon in¬ 
vading Attica, under the leadership of Aletes of Corinth. 
Accordingly they encamped in Attica, and the oracle of 
Delphi had promised them success, provided they spared the 
life of the Athenian king. This oracle had become known 
to the Athenians, and their king resolved to sacrifice himself 
for his country. Disguised in a woodman's garb, he went 
among the Dorians and killed one with his bill, whereupon 
he himself was slain by another. When the Dorians dis¬ 
covered what had taken place, they despaired of success, and 
withdrew their forces from Attica. 

3. About the same time Megara, which had until then 
belonged to Attica, was separated from it, being occupied by 
a Dorian colony from Corinth, by which it was afterwards 
held in subjection. iEgina was likewise seized by Dorians 
from Epidaurus. But by far the most important Dorian colo¬ 
nies were those established in Crete during the third genera¬ 
tion after the conquest of Peloponnesus. These colonies were 
founded by Dorians from Sparta and Argos, who during the 
broils and conflicts in Peloponnesus were induced to seek new 
homes elsewhere. Some of these emigrants, who cannot have 
been very numerous, established themselves in Bhodes, which 
henceforth became a Dorian island. The conquest of Crete 
is said to have been a matter of little difficulty, as the island 
had been desolated by pestilence and famine, but it must 
nevertheless have taken some time before the Dorians be¬ 
came complete masters of it. The political institutions of 
Crete, greatly resembling those of Sparta, are said by some to 
have been introduced into the latter city from the island, 
while others maintain that the Cretan towns derived them 
from Sparta. The real truth however seems to be that 


INSTITUTIONS OF THE DORIANS. 


161 


neither place derived them from the other, but that they 
were the common institutions of the Doric race, which carried 
them with it wherever it formed settlements, though we dc 
not deny that some of those institutions may have existed in 
Crete ever since the time of king Minos, to whom the Dorians 
of Crete were inclined to trace them for the purpose of 
making them appear more ancient and venerable. All the 
inhabitants of Crete were divided into three classes, freemen, 
slaves, and perioeci, the last of w T kom probably were the 
ancient proprietors of the soil, but were compelled to live in 
open towns and villages, and had to pay a certain tax to 
their Doric rulers, though they were personally free. The 
government, the administration, and the making of the laws, 
were in the hands of the Doric freemen, who also reserved 
other rights and privileges for themselves, though their rule 
does not appear to have been very oppressive. The slaves were 
either persons who had forcibly resisted the invaders, or such as 
had been slaves before. The land was partly left to its former 
owners, and partly taken possession of by the new colonists, 
but besides these portions, each state set apart a domain for 
itself which was cultivated by public slaves. All the land 
was tilled by the perioeci and slaves, while the Dorians knew 
no other pursuits but those of war, and lived by the toil of their 
subjects and slaves. The form of government was nearly the 
same in all the Doric colonies of Crete, which shows that it 
had a national character, and was not the result of accident. 
Kings are not mentioned, but their place was supplied by 
ten annual magistrates bearing the title of cosmoi, who were 
elected from among the most illustrious families by the body of 
free citizens. At the end of their year of office the cosmoi 
might be elected into the senate, called geronia or bule, of 
which they remained members for life. The number of senators 
in each state seems to have been thirty. This constitution was 
evidently thoroughly aristocratic. The assembly of the people, 


162 HISTORY OF GREECE. 

consisting of the free Doric citizens, might be convened by 
the magistrates whenever they thought it advisable, but its 
members seem to have had little power beyond giving their 
assent to the measures brought before them. 

4. The most striking feature in the Cretan mode of life, 
though this too they had in common with most other Doric 
states, was the custom according to which all the citizens, old 
and young, took their meals together at public tables and at 
the expense of the state. These public meals, which were 
elsewhere called syssitia, bore in Crete the name of andreia 
or andria. They kept up among the ruling class a feeling of 
unity and of superiority over their subjects, and bound 
together the citizens by close intimacy, while the young had 
opportunities of listening to the opinions and views of the 
older men. Besides this, however, the conduct of boys and 
youths was strictly watched by persons appointed for the 
purpose. Their training and education were conducted with 
the same severity and harshness as at Sparta. Institutions 
like these occur more or less in all the Doric states of Greece, 
a fact which shows incontrovertibly that they were not the 
work of any particular lawgiver, but the natural results of 
the character of the Doric race. 

5. Although the history of the Doric states of Pelopon¬ 
nesus during the first centuries after their formation is ex¬ 
tremely obscure, yet it is evident that Sparta was the chief 
among them, and that the Doric institutions there were more 
fully developed than in any other state. These circum¬ 
stances, and the conquest of Messenia by Sparta, raised her 
in the course of time to the supremacy not only of Pelopon¬ 
nesus but of Greece, and the greatness and glory she thus 
acquired have shed a lustre over her whole history which 
in many respects is not well deserved. The constitution of 
Sparta is generally ascribed to Lycurgus, who is believed 
either to have devised it, or at least to have introduced 


LYCURGUS. 


163 


it among his countrymen. But if we look to the nature of the 
Spartan institutions, and compare them with those of other 
Doric states, it becomes highly probable that they cannot 
have been the work of one particular mind, hut that the 
ground-work at least was common to all the Dorians, so 
that Lycurgus, if he ever existed, cannot have done much 
more than systematise and supplement that which he already 
found in operation. The mythical character of the history of 
this renowned lawgiver is further confirmed by the different 
statements about his descent and the time when he flourished, 
for while some regard him as a contemporary of the Heracleid 
conquerors, others place him more than two hundred years 
later, that is, about b.c. 884. Sparta was governed by two 
kings descended from Aristodemus, whose two sons, Eurys- 
thenes and Procles, ruled the kingdom in common, and 
Lycurgus was generally believed to have been connected 
with one of these royal houses. By an act of justice and 
generosity he secured the succession to a posthumous son 
of his brother; and as this involved him in unpleasantries 
with the infant’s mother, who wished to marry him, he 

left his country and spent the best part of his life in foreign 

/ 

lands, though his countrymen often invited him to return. 
He is said to have gathered information in the most distant 
countries, and on his return he found Lacedaemon in a state 
of anarchy and political dissolution. The need of reform was 
generally felt, and having secured the favour of a large 
body of the leading men at Sparta, and been declared by the 
Delphic oracle to be wiser than ordinary mortals, he succes¬ 
sively procured the enactment of a series of ordinances, by 
which the civil and military constitution of the state, the 
distribution of property, the education of the citizens, and the 
regulation of their daily life and intercourse, were fixed as on 
a sacred and immutable basis. Having accomplished his 
great work in spite of violent opposition, he went to Delphi, 


164 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


having previously bound his fellow citizens by a solemn oath 
to make no change in his laws until his return. The law¬ 
giver himself, however, never returned, and an oracle was 
transmitted to Sparta declaring that she should flourish as 
long as she observed his laws. When, where, and how he 
died was never known, but the Spartans honoured him as a 
god with a temple and annual sacrifices. 

6. This story about the famous Spartan lawgiver was 
believed by nearly all the ancients, and one fact seems to be 
clear from their concurrent testimony, that the legislation, 
which is described as the work of Lycurgus, delivered Sparta 
from anarchy and the evils of misrule, and that it formed the 
commencement of a long period of tranquillity and order. The 
reforms which were introduced affected the whole country of 
Laconia, and the private as well as the public life of its 
inhabitants. The great object of the legislator seems to have 
been to maintain the sovereignty of Sparta over the rest of 
Laconia, and to unite the Spartans among themselves by the 
closest ties. The ancient usages and customs now assumed 
the character of strict law, sanctioned and hallowed by religion. 
In order to gain a basis for his new regulations, the lawgiver 
is said to have made an entirely new division of all the 
landed property in Laconia, thus removing the causes of 
discord, and facilitating the reform of abuses, which feuds 
and quarrels among the Doric rulers themselves seem to have 
produced. 

7. Lycurgus, then, is said first of all to have divided 
Laconia, so far as it was then subject to Sparta, into thirty - 
nine thousand lots, of which nine thousand were assigned to 
Spartan families, and thirty thousand to the free Laconian 
subjects. As it is scarcely possible to conceive the existence 
of so many Spartan and Laconian families, we are perhaps 
justified in preferring another account, which speaks of only 
four thousand lots assigned to the Spartans by Lycurgus, and 


LEGISLATION OF LYCURGUS 


165 


mentions that this number was doubled after the conquest of 
Messenia. There can he no doubt that in this distribution 
the ruling Spartans selected for themselves the most fertile 
and valuable portions of the country, to maintain their families 
and their numerous slaves. Some parts of the land, however, 
remained the property of the state, being its domain, while 
others continued, as before, to be the property of temples. 
How far these agrarian regulations were new, and how far 
the legislator only fixed by law what had been long esta¬ 
blished by custom, cannot be ascertained. 

8. All the inhabitants of Laconia were divided into three 
ranks or classes—1. The Dorians of Sparta; 2. The serfs or 
Helots; and 3. The subject people of Laconia. The last were 
chiefly Achaeans, that is, the ancient inhabitants of the country, 
intermixed with strangers that had accompanied the Dorians 
at the time of the invasion. For the purpose of weakening 
them, the Spartans dispersed them over the country in open 
towns and villages. The ruling Dorians of Sparta always 
looked upon them with jealousy and a degree of fear. These 
Laconians had no political rights, but had to bear the heaviest 
public burdens, and to fight the battles, the main object of 
which was to gratify the pride and ambition of their rulers. 
Personally, however, they were free, and enjoyed the undi¬ 
vided possession of the trade and manufactures of the country; 
for the higher as well as the lower arts were looked upon 
as degrading to a Spartan. The Helots or serfs were pro¬ 
bably the descendants of those Achaeans who, in conse¬ 
quence of their obstinate resistance to the invading Dorians, 
had been reduced to slavery. Their condition was most 
wretched; they were always feared and suspected by their 
masters, and atrocious violence was often resorted to, to 
reduce their strength or break their spirit. They were bound 
to the soil, and could not be torn from it, or sold into another 
country; some were employed in domestic, and others in 


166 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


public works; by zeal and industry, however, they might 
obtain their freedom. When a Spartan went out as a soldier 
in time of war, he was always attended by a number of Helots, 
who then had an opportunity of enriching themselves by 
the spoil. These advantages, however, which the Spartan 
slaves had in common with those of all other ancient nations, 
were more than counterbalanced by the inhuman cruelty with 
which they were treated by their masters; and on one 
occasion two thousand of them were murdered for no other 
reason than because they were brave men. It would seem also 
that in later times the condition of the Helots became worse 
than it had been originally. No wonder, therefore, that their 
masters lived in perpetual fear of them. The Spartans, that 
is, the ruling body of Heracleid and Doric conquerors, were 
entirely dependent upon their slaves, who cultivated their lands, 
and attended on them in time of war and during their stay at 
home ; the Helot had to work and toil for his master, without 
ever enjoying the results of his labours. The ruling body of 
the Spartans had all equal rights, and formed a class like the 
Roman patricians, resembling, in many points, a modern aris¬ 
tocracy. They were the only real citizens of the state, all 
the rest being subjects and slaves. The Dorians at Sparta, 
as everywhere else, were divided into three tribes, just as the 
lonians always formed four; their names at Sparta were 
Hylleans, Dymanes, and Pamphylians, and these three tribes 
were subdivided into thirty obae. It is not known whether 
the Hylleans, who claimed to be descended from Heracles, 
and to whom the royal families belonged, had any privileges 
not shared by the two other tribes. 

9. As all free Spartans, except the two kings, had equal 
rights, their constitution may be called a democracy, with 
two hereditary magistrates at its head; but in relation to 
the Laconians scattered over the country, it was a rigid 
aristocracy, which clung to the ancient forms of the constitu- 


SPARTAN CONSTITUTION. 


167 


tion even at a time when its spirit had completely departed. 
The policy of the Spartans was eminently conservative, so that 
in later times their constitution was in constant antagonism tc 
the spirit of the age, which required reforms and improvements 
The men who saw the evil and attempted reforms fell victims 
to their endeavours. The sovereign power at Sparta, as in 
all other ancient republics, resided in the assembly of the 
citizens, which was convened by the magistrates at stated 
periods, but could only accept or reject the measures brought 
before it—all discussion as well as the proposing of amend¬ 
ments being confined to persons in office. Such assemblies 
were no part of the legislation of Lycurgus, any more than 
the existence of a senate or council of elders, called gerusia, 
but had existed from time immemorial, and probably all 
that the lawgiver did, was to regulate and organise that 
which had existed as an ancient usage. The senate con¬ 
sisted of twenty-eight members, or, including the two kings, 
thirty, each representing one of the thirty obae. They 
were elected by the kings, without regard to anything 
except age and personal merit, and no one could become a 
member of the gerusia before he had completed his sixtieth 
year; but then they held their office for life. They had to 
prepare the measures that were brought before the assembly of 
the citizens, and in early times their authority must have been 
more extensive than afterwards, for the two kings had in the 
gerusia no more power than any other senator; but in later 
times, when part of their functions were assumed by the 
ephors, who bear some resemblance to the Eoman tribunes of 
the plebs, the influence of both the senate and the kings was 
reduced to comparative insignificance. 

10. It is remarkable that while the kingly dignity was 
abolished in all other parts of Greece, it was maintained at 
Sparta almost as long as it formed an independent state. Its 
powers, however, were in the course of time considerably 


168 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


reduced by the institution of tbe ephorate. The chief func- 
tions of the kings were to command the armies, of which 
they seem originally to have had the uncontrolled direc¬ 
tion ; besides this, they were the high priests of the nation, 
more especially priests of Zeus, and had a kind of jurisdiction 
which was afterwards greatly limited. However, although 
the power of the kings was # not very great, the honours 
attached to their station were by no means insignificant, for 
they were revered as the chief magistrates and as connected 
with the gods by their descent; and besides possessing exten¬ 
sive demesnes in various parts of the country, they received 
certain payments in kind, which enabled them to maintain 
their household and to exercise great hospitality. The time 
when ephors were appointed is uncertain, some assigning the 
institution to Lycurgus and others to a later period, though 
the probability is that they too were an ancient Doric magis¬ 
tracy which had existed long before the time of the lawgiver. 
They were five in number, and were elected annually. They 
exercised from the first a kind of superintendence and juris¬ 
diction over the civil affairs of the Spartans; but their poli¬ 
tical importance belongs to a later period. 

11. The principle pervading the whole Spartan constitu¬ 
tion was that a citizen was born and lived only for the state, 
that his substance, time, strength, faculties, and affections, 
were to be dedicated to its service, and that its welfare and 
glory should be his happiness and honour ; and this prin¬ 
ciple was the necessary result of the circumstances under 
which a handful of Dorians had become masters of a country 
with a population far more numerous than themselves. As 
the Spartans were a close aristocracy, their numbers con¬ 
tinually decreased, and as their property could not be sold, 
but always descended to the eldest son, or in default of a 
male heir to the eldest daughter, the landed estates in the 
end accumulated in the hands of a few immensely wealthy 


SPARTAN INSTITUTIONS. 


169 


proprietors, while a great many persons lived in extreme poverty. 
Money was not coined at Sparta even at the time when all 
the other Greek states had long adopted it as a conveni¬ 
ence ; the possession of precious metals was forbidden as dan¬ 
gerous, and bars or pieces of iron continued'to be the only 
legal currency at Sparta down to the latest times. This pro¬ 
hibition of the precious metals, however, applied to the Spar¬ 
tans only, the Laconians not being affected by it, for they 
were free in their commercial dealings with other states. A 
regulation like this is always sure to defeat its own ends, and 
the Spartans in later times were notorious above all other 
Greeks for their avarice. The women, the mothers of the 
brave warriors, were much more respected and honoured at 
Sparta than in other parts of Greece, and some of them have 
acquired a renown in history which is scarcely inferior to that 
of the noblest Roman matrons. The education of young men 
for the service of the state was conducted with particular 
care. Its sphere was very narrow, for all that was aimed at 
was to train men prepared to live in the midst of difficulty 
and danger, and who should be equally ready to command and 
to obey; the cultivation of the intellect and the feelings was 
totally neglected. Sickly or deformed infants were exposed 
in a glen of mount Taygetus. "Warlike poetry and music, 
however, were much enjoyed by the Spartans, whence the 
Iliad became very popular among them at an early period, 
and Tyrtaeus was held in high honour. The other amuse¬ 
ments of the Spartans, young and old, were the palaestra or 
gymnastic exercises and the chase. They were soldiers from 
the age of maturity down to their sixtieth year. 

12. All the institutions of Sparta were of a one-sided 
character, and the unlimited admiration bestowed upon them by 
both ancient and modern writers has in our time given way to 
a more correct estimate. In all their movements the Spartans 
were cautious and slow; war was their element, and this 


170 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


spirit was maintained by their ancient system of tactics. The 
main strength of the army consisted in its heavy-armed in¬ 
fantry, the only mode of service which was thought worthy 
of a free Spartan. The cavalry never acquired any great 
efficiency at Sparta. The Helots formed the light infantry. 
Sparta, moreover, was never distinguished for its navy; its 
great strength always lay in its land force. 

13. It was not till about a century after the time in 
which Lycurgus is commonly said to have lived, that all 
Laconia was subdued by its Dorian conquerors, and in the 
enjoyment of a period of repose. The institutions of Lycur¬ 
gus made the Spartans strong and united, and having for 
centuries been accustomed to war with the ancient Achaean 
population of the country, they seem now to have been impa¬ 
tient for fresh enterprises. Jealousy appears to have sprung 
up between Argos and Sparta about the possession of the 
eastern coast of Laconia, which had originally belonged to 
Argos. Of this district the Spartans made themselves 
masters ; and the result was a series of hostilities, in the 
course of .which attempts were also made to conquer Tegea in 
Arcadia; they were often renewed, but always failed. 

14. An easier and more inviting conquest offered itself in 
the west. It was probably not without jealousy and envy that 
the Dorians of Laconia observed that Messenia was a much 
fairer and more fertile country than their own, and a pretext 
for war was easily found. The Dorians in Messenia, moreover, 
had acted very differently towards the Achaean population, 
which, having submitted to the invaders without much resist¬ 
ance, had been treated with moderation and mildness by the 
conquerors. The first Dorian king Cresphontes is even said 
to have formed plans for uniting the Dorians and Achaeans 
into one people. The jealousy of his Dorian subjects indeed 
thwarted this scheme, but it was taken up again by his son 
iEpytus and carried. His successors followed the same 


FIRST MESSENIAN WAR. 


171 


policy, and the country prospered and the arts of peace flour¬ 
ished under it. The arts of war were probably not so much 
cultivated there as at Sparta, and this may have been another 
reason why the Spartans thought it an easy matter to con¬ 
quer their neighbours. Such temptations rendered it easy 
for them to find a pretext for war. 

15. Irritations and provocations are said to have occurred 
at different times, but the event which finally led to the out¬ 
break of war was a private wrong committed by a Spartan 
against a Messenian. The result was, that in b. c. 743 the 
Spartans bound themselves by an oath not to cease warring 
against Messenia until the country should be made theirs 
by the right of conquest; and soon afterwards they invaded 
it, massacred the defenceless inhabitants, and established 
themselves in the fortified town of Amphea. Thus com¬ 
menced the first Messenian war, which lasted from b. c. 743 
to 724. The accounts which w^e have of it, as well as those 
of the second war, are little more than poetical lays or popular 
traditions. After the lapse of several years, during which 
the Spartans had constantly made ravaging excursions from 
Amphea, and the Messenians had suffered severely, the latter 
fortified themselves in the stronghold on mount Ithome. Vic¬ 
tory was promised by an oracle to the Messenians on condition 
of a pure virgin being sacrificed to the infernal gods, and when 
it became known to the Spartans that the sacrifice had been 
made, they were discouraged, until after several years their 
king Theopompus again led an army into the country and 
fought a battle. The Messenian king was slain, and was 
succeeded by Aristodemus, whose daughter had been sacrificed 
for her country. He won the hearts of the people, governed 
them wisely, and formed an alliance with the Arcadians. 
The war continued in the form of petty inroads and ravages, 
which were renewed every year at the harvest season, and it 
was not till the fifth year »ff the reign of Aristodemus that a 


172 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


pitched battle was fought at the foot of mount Ithome, in 
which the Spartans and their allies were defeated. But 
various oracles and successful stratagems of the Spartans in 
the end reduced Aristodemus to despair, in which he made 
away with himself. The Messenians upon this untoward event 
lost their hopes, but not their courage. Damis, their com¬ 
mander, once more made a vigorous sally from Ithome; but 
when the bravest leaders had fallen, the people fled from the 
fortress, leaving their rich fields in the possession of the 
conquerors, and the war was at an end. 

16. After this catastrophe the main body of the Messenians 
dispersed from Ithome to their own homes, but many took 
refuge in foreign lands. Ithome was razed to the ground, 
and the Spartans, after taking all the other' Messenian towns, 
disposed of the country at their pleasure. The Messenians 
who remained in their native land were reduced to the condition 
of serfs, and, like the Helots, had to pay to their masters half 
the produce of their fields; and the remaining portions of 
the land were distributed among the Spartans, or perhaps 
to the offspring of mixed marriages between Spartans and 
Laconians, who did not enjoy the full franchise, and were 
for this reason induced in b.c. 708 to quit Greece, and 
found a new home for themselves at Tarentum in the south 
of Italy. 

It would seem that to this period also belongs the exten¬ 
sion of the powers of the ephors, who are commonly said to 
have been instituted by king Theopompus. Their superinten¬ 
dence of the execution of the laws must have brought them 
into frequent collision with the kings; and a dexterous, and 
enterprising ephor might by this means easily raise his power 
above that of the kings themselves. In later times the 
ephors also had the power of convoking the assembly of the 
people, of laying measures before it, and of acting in its 
name. By this means they easily rose above all other magis- 


SECOND MESSENIAN WAR. 


173 


trates, and exercised a power at Sparta not unlike that of 
the plebeian tribunes at Eome. 

17. During the first Messenian war, Argos, probably 
under its distinguished king Pheidon, had recovered the 
eastern coast of Laconia as far as cape Malea, and even con¬ 
quered the island of Cythera. It seems at that time to have 
been a great power, but after Pheidon’s death all was lost 
again, and Sparta ruled over the south of Peloponnesus from 
sea to sea. Caranus, a brother of Pheidon, is said to have 
emigrated, and to have founded the dynasty of the kingdom 
of Macedonia in the north. Sparta, however, was not to 
enjoy her conquests undisturbed. The subjugated Messe- 
nians, and still more their exiled countrymen, burned with 
indignation against their oppressors. Aristomenes, a Messe¬ 
nian of noble descent and surpassing valour, cheered on his 
countrymen and roused them into action; alliances also were 
formed with Argos, Arcadia, and even with Elis, and in b.c. 
685 the Messenians took up arms to shake off the yoke. 
The accounts of this war, which lasted till b.c. 668, are still 
more mythical or fabulous than those of the first, though the 
fact of the war itself is beyond all doubt. Aristomenes, it is 
said, rallied his countrymen in the mountainous districts. A 
great battle was fought before any assistance could come 
from Sparta; the victory was not decisive, but the Spartans 
were terror-struck by the unexpected insurrection, and the 
Messenians conceived fresh hopes. Aristomenes, who refused 
the proffered crown, is reported one night to have boldly 
entered the city of Sparta, and to have dedicated a trophy in 
the temple of Athena. The Spartans were advised by the 
god of Delphi to seek an Athenian counsellor; and the Attic 
town of Aphidnae sent Tyrtaeus, a martial poet, to their 
aid. They also received auxiliaries from Corinth and other 
places, while the Messenians were supported by their exiled 
countrymen, and cheered on by the soothsayer Theocles. 


174 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Near Stenycleros a great battle was fought, in which the 
Spartans were routed, so that for a time Messenia was freed 
from her enemies. After a while, however, Aristomenes again 
took up the offensive, ravaged the towns and villages of 
Laconia, and was stopped in his progress only by an acci¬ 
dental wound. In the third year Sparta again prepared 
for battle, in which, assisted by the treachery of the Arca¬ 
dians, she gained a victory. Aristomenes, nothing daunted, 
assembled his countrymen on mount Eira, where they fortified 
themselves, and were besieged by the enemy. He maintained 
himself by frequent sallies, and the Spartans, in order to pre¬ 
vent his obtaining supplies for his men, laid waste the sur¬ 
rounding country. 

18. But all was in vain, for one night Aristomenes went as 
far as Amyclae, and returned laden with booty. In a second 
expedition of a similar kind, however, he was unsuccessful, 
and, with his companions, fell into the hands of his enemies, 
who, treating their captives like vile malefactors, threw them 
into a deep pit called the Ceadas. The life of Aristomenes is 
said to have been saved in a marvellous manner, and he soon 
again joined his men at Eira. But after many most extra¬ 
ordinary adventures and successes which the legend ascribes to 
him, he incurred the anger of the gods, who now turned against 
his country. The siege of Eira had lasted eleven years, when 
the fall of Messenia was brought about by treachery, b. c. 668. 
Guided by a herdsman who had learned the real condition of 
the enemy while concealed in the house of a Messenian, the 
Spartans attacked Eira, and, notwithstanding a most heroic 
defence of the besieged, which lasted for three days and three 
nights, there was no hope of success. Aristomenes, with a 
small band, forced his way through the besieging army, and 
went to Arcadia, where he was hospitably received. He 
afterwards made a last expedition into Laconia, where, with 
fifty of his companions in exile, he died sword in hand. 


NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 


175 


19. After this war, which had lasted for seventeen years, 
all the Messenians who remained in their country were reduced 
to the condition of Helots; hut most of the people probably 
emigrated. Guided by sons of Aristomenes, a band of Mes¬ 
senians sailed to Rhegium in southern Italy, to join some of 
their kinsmen who had already settled there at the end of the 
first war. Afterwards they made themselves masters of the 
town of Zancle, on the opposite coast of Sicily, and called it 
Messene (Messina). The Spartan yoke was now fixed on the 
neck of MesSenia for ever, and Sparta rapidly rose towards 
the supremacy in Greece. Tegea, the possession of which 
had been long coveted, was conquered about the middle of the 
sixth century b. c. Sparta, in many instances, interfered in 
the affairs of the other Greek states, and assumed a command¬ 
ing tone, to which they were obliged to submit. The fame 
of the most powerful state in Greece spread so far, that even 
Croesus, the king of Lydia, sent ambassadors to court its 
friendship. 


CHAPTER IV. 

NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE GREEKS, AND HISTORY OF 
ATTICA DOWN TO THE PERSIAN WARS. 

1. Independently of the colonies established abroad in 
consequence of the migrations and conquests described in the 
preceding chapter, Greece herself also experienced many 
changes in her ancient national institutions. The Greeks at 
all times had no other bond of union but that of their common 
language and religion ; in the expedition against Troy alone, 
they are said to have been also united under one military com- 



176 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


mander; but this union was only transitory, and produced no 
lasting effects. Greece remained divided into almost as many 
little states as it contained cities. There existed, however, 
from early times, certain associations for religious, and partly 
also for political purposes, some of which, in the course of time, 
assumed at least the appearance of national confederations. 
The most important among them were those called Amphic- 
tionies, or Amphictyonies, that is, unions among a number of 
places or tribes, with a common centre, which was always a 
religious one, such as a temple, at which the periodical 
meetings were held. One Amphictiony of this kind met at 
Onchestos in Boeotia, another in Calaureia,asmall island in the 
Saronic gulf, and a third in Delos; but the most important and 
best known is that which held its meetings in the spring at 
Delphi, and in the autumn at Thermopylae. It was originally 
formed by twelve tribes, all of which belonged to the part of 
Greece north of the Corinthian isthmus; but afterwards, the 
Dorians of Peloponnesus also joined the association, so that 
its influence extended over the whole of Greece. But it never¬ 
theless at no time assumed a really national character. The 
ordinary duties of the congress of deputies were chiefly con¬ 
nected with religion, and its main functions were to guard 
the temple of Delphi, and to restrain Mutual violence among 
the states belonging to the league. This last object, how¬ 
ever, was not always attended to ; for we sometimes find mem¬ 
bers of the Amphictiony inflicting the worst evils of war upon 
one another, without any attempt being made to check them. 
The league was, in fact, powerless for good, and active only 
for unimportant or pernicious purposes; and it may be truly 
said, that one of the chief objects for which the league appears 
to have been originally formed, was afterwards completely 
disregarded. The only cases in which we find the confede¬ 
racy actively interfering, are those in which the honour and 
interests of the Delphic temple were concerned, as, for example, 


NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 


177 


in the Crissaean or first sacred war, in b. c. 594. The inha¬ 
bitants of Crissa were charged with extortion and violence 
towards strangers proceeding through their territory to Delphi, 
and the Amphictions accordingly commenced a war against the 
town, which lasted for ten years, until b. c. 585. At the end 
of this period, Crissa was taken and razed to the ground, its 
harbour choked up, and its fertile plain changed into a wil¬ 
derness. This war, the termination of which was a flagrant 
violation of one of the fundamental rules of the Amphictionic 
league, is said to have been brought to a close by a stratagem 
devised by Solon, the Athenian lawgiver. 

2. Another class of national institutions consisted of the 
festive games celebrated at certain places, and at fixed inter¬ 
vals of time, and open to all true Greeks. The most impor¬ 
tant of these festivals was that celebrated every four years 
at Olympia in Elis. The foundation of these Olympic games 
is extremely obscure ; but after they had been neglected for a 
long period during the disturbances created by the Doric con¬ 
quest of Peloponnesus, they were revived by Iphitus in concert 
with Lycurgus, but it was not till b. c. 776 that they were 
finally and permanently established, whence that year was 
employed as a chronological era. The Eleans presided at the 
games, and during their celebration there was a general suspen¬ 
sion of hostilities, to enable the Greeks from all parts to go to 
Olympia without danger or hindrance. The contests at these 
games in honour of the Olympian Zeus consisted of exhibitions 
displaying almost every mode of bodily activity; they included 
races on foot, and with horses and chariots; contests in leaping, 
throwing, wrestling, and boxing, and some in which several of 
these exercises were combined, but no combats with any kind 
of weapon. Towns and families regarded it as the highest 
honour for one of their members to gain a victory in any of 
the contests at Olympia. The prize consisted of a simple 
garland of the leaves of the wild olive. Athens and Sparta 


178 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


showered honours upon any of their fellow-citizens who had 
obtained a prize. The celebrity of these games led to the 
institution of several others of a similar nature, such as the 
Pythian, which were celebrated in the third year of every 
Olympiad—the Nemean and Isthmian, which were celebrated 
each twice in every Olympiad. These four contests were 
distinguished from all others chiefly by the nature of the 
prize, which was in all cases a simple garland. In regard to 
national unity, these contests had little influence, for they 
never induced the Greeks to merge their little local patriotism 
in the more comprehensive sentiment of a common country 
and nationality. The arts of poetry and sculpture, on the 
other hand, received strong nourishment at these exhibitions, 
for a victory gained often inspired the poet to the most sublime 
effusions of the lyric muse, and statues of the victors not only 
adorned Olympia but their native places, not to mention that 
literary productions were sometimes read by their authors to 
the assembled Greeks. 

3. The form of government universally prevailing in the 
Greek states in the Homeric age was a monarchy limited by 
ancient custom as well as by the powerful chiefs, of whom 
the king was only the first, whence we may call it an aris¬ 
tocracy with a hereditary prince at its head. But owing to 
various causes which operated during the first centuries after 
the Trojan war, the title of royalty was abolished in nearly 
every part of Greece, and in all cases the power of the nobles 
increased at the expense of that of the kings. In our tradi¬ 
tional history the causes of this change are often quite fabu¬ 
lous, but the truth is, that it mainly arose out of the energy 
and versatility of the Greek mind, which prevented it from 
ever becoming stagnating like that of the Orientals, or 
from stopping short in any career which it had once opened, 
before it had passed through every stage. Royalty, however, 
■was scarcely ever overthrown by violent revolutions; its title 


CHANGES OF GOVERNMENT. 


179 


often long survived the substance, and the transition from 
monarchy to republicanism was generally brought about by 
a succession of reforms. The government substituted for 
monarchy was generally aristocratic or oligarchic—that is, the 
supreme power was assumed by the nobles, who had subdued 
the original inhabitants of the country and distributed their 
landed property among themselves. In the course of time 
the commonalty, or the free subjects of the nobles, ever in¬ 
creasing in number and wealth, while the exclusive nobles 
became more reduced in numbers, put forward new claims, 
and became formidable opponents of the oligarchs, especially 
in large towns. Various means were devised by the nobles 
to check this progress of the commonalty, but to no purpose; 
and it often became necessary to make a compromise between 
the two parties, as for example in those cases where property 
was made the standard, instead of birth, to measure a citizen’s 
rights and duties. Where the property standard was made 
low, the government at once became democratic instead of 
aristocratic. During the feuds between these two contend¬ 
ing parties, it was sometimes found necessary to entrust un¬ 
limited powers to some individual who possessed the confidence 
of both, for the purpose of restoring order and tranquillity. 

4. But the Greek oligarchies were sometimes also over¬ 
thrown by a disastrous war, or by revolutions and dissensions 
wdthin their own body; and it most commonly happened in 
such a case that one of the nobles by skill and prudence con¬ 
ciliated the commonalty, and with its aid raised himself above 
his brother nobles. Such a usurper was designated by the 
name of tyrant, and his rule generally did not last long, or if 
he did succeed in maintaining his power until his death, his 
sons generally lost it by their own recklessness or cruelty, 
which called forth a conspiracy or insurrection. It is worthy 
of remark that the Spartans were always ready to assist in 
overthrowing the power of a tyrant, though probably more 


180 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


from a desire to extend their influence over the Greeks, than 
from any desire to free them from a usurper; and this inter¬ 
ference of theirs in the affairs of other states greatly contributed 
to establish the so-called Spartan supremacy in Greece. The 
immediate object of the Spartans generally was, if possible, to 
introduce their own oligarchic form of government in the place 
of the one they helped to overthrow. But in this attempt 
they were frequently thwarted. The process which has here 
been described in general will be illustrated in detail in the 
history of Attica, and what happened there, was more or less 
the same as what occurred in other states of Greece. 

5. The early history of Attica is much less interesting 
than that of the Doric states, and it is in fact not till a com¬ 
paratively late period that Athens begins to act a prominent 
part in Grecian history, though after it had once come forward, 
it soon eclipsed all the other states. The country of Attica 
is said to have been originally divided into a number of small 
independent states, governed by kings. The mythical king 
Cecrops is said to have united these states, and to have 
divided the country into twelve districts, or founded twelve 
towns. Athens, then called Cecropia, was at the head of this 
confederacy. The division of the country into twelve parts 
seems to have been only a multiple of four, a number which 
we find in Attica no less than in other Ionian countries. 
Accordingly we hear of a division of the people of Attica into 
four tribes, which changed their names under several successive 
kings.; the last set of names, which was traced to Ion, the 
founder of the Ionian race, continued to be used until a very 
late period, and is the most important of all. These names, 
Teleontes, Hopletes, iEgicores, and Argades, are descriptive 
of certain occupations, the second and third evidently signify¬ 
ing warriors and shepherds respectively; Argades probably 
referred to husbandmen, and the Teleontes were perhaps the 
nobles, who alone were entitled to hold the highest magistra- 


EARLY HISTORY OF ATTICA. 


181 


cies. These four divisions ought not to he regarded as castes, 
like those of India or Egypt; and to whatever circumstances 
they may have originally owed their names, the closer union 
among the people of Attica, and their intercourse with one 
another, in the course of time obliterated such primitive distinc¬ 
tions. The gradual union of these four tribes was promoted 
by their affinity of blood and language, and by the need of 
mutual assistance; and all were naturally disposed to look 
up to the people of Athens as their natural head and centre. 
The legends, however, describe this as the work of Theseus, 
who is said to have consolidated the national unity, and laid 
the foundation of the greatness of Athens, by collecting the 
scattered inhabitants of Attica into one city, and putting 
an end to the perpetual discord among them. All that can 
be meant by this tradition is, that Attica became united as 
one state, of which Athens was the centre and seat of govern¬ 
ment, for it is inconceivable that all the population of Attica 
should have been collected into one city. In later times 
several religious institutions, such as the Panathenaea, were 
believed to have been established to commemorate this union 
of Attica. Athens itself is said to have been enlarged on that 
occasion, and the lower city to have been added to the one 
existing on the Cecropian rock. The additional accommoda¬ 
tion was probably required for the noble families which removed 
from the country to the seat of government. 

6. In later times Theseus was regarded as the founder of 
all the great political institutions of Athens, which probably 
arose from a desire to represent those things that were 
endeared to all as venerable also by their antiquity. In the 
constitution w r hich he was believed to have framed, all the 
nobles, called eupatridae, had an equal share in the govern¬ 
ment ; they possessed all the offices of the state, with the 
power of regulating the affairs of religion, and of interpreting 
the laws, human and divine. The great body of the subject 


182 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


people consisted of husbandmen and artizans, who formed the 
commonalty, and were governed by the nobles and the king, 
whose rank, as in the Homeric poems, was only that of the 
first among his equals; but still the union of the commonalty 
in the one great state must have strengthened it so far as to 
resist any excessive harshness on the part of the eupatridae. 
In all the states of antiquity, the tribes were subdivided; in 
Attica each of the four tribes was divided into three phratriae 
or fraternities, and each phratria into thirty gene , gentes , or 
clans. It need hardly be observed that these political arrange¬ 
ments, though ascribed to Theseus, were the natural results of 
circumstances, and that it probably required a long period before 
they attained that development which the legend represents 
as the work of one man. 

7. Notwithstanding, however, the absolute power exer¬ 
cised by the king and his officers, there existed at Athens, as 
in most ancient states, an assembly of the people, that is, an 
assembly of the burghers or nobles, for the commonalty had 
as yet no right to appear and vote in it. The power of 
the assembly was at first probably as limited as it was at 
Sparta. Hence the first contests of the nobles were not 
waged with the commonalty, but with the king. The legends 
about the kings of Athens cannot be accepted as history, 
but still even these legends represent the kings as conspired 
against by the nobles; and certain it is, that after the death 
of Codrus, the nobles, taking advantage of the disputes be¬ 
tween his sons about the succession, abolished the title of 
king, and substituted for it the simple and less venerable one 
of archon or ruler. The office, however, still remained here¬ 
ditary in the house of Codrus and was held for life. Medon, 
a son of Codrus, was the first archon for life, and on his 
demise the nobles elected a successor from his family. This 
power exercised by the nobles, however, did not satisfy their 
ambition, for what they aimed at was a complete and equal 


CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES. 


183 


participation in the sovereignty. Accordingly, after twelve 
archonships, ending with that of Alcmaeon, in b. c. 752, the 
duration of the office was limited to ten years, though it 
still continued to be held by the descendants of Medon. This 
change was followed in n. c. 683 by another, in which the 
term of the archonship was reduced to a single year, and at 
the same time the different powers which had until then been 
possessed by one, were distributed among nine archons. This 
reform is said to have been introduced in consequence of the 
misconduct of Hippomenes, the fourth of the decennial archons, 
and through it a large number of nobles obtained a chance of 
receiving at least a share in the sovereign power. The first 
of these nine magistrates bore the title of the archon, and by 
his name the year was marked; the second had the title of 
king-archon, the name king being retained from religious 
scruples, as he had to perform the priestly functions which 
had formerly belonged to the king. The third archon was 
styled polemarch, and had the command of the Athenian 
army, until the time of the Persian wars, after which this 
duty was transferred to others, while the polemarch only 
retained a special kind of jurisdiction. The remaining six 
archons had the common title of thesmothetae, that is, legis¬ 
lators, or rather expounders of the law. 

8. These successive changes are almost the only events 
that occur in the history of Athens from the time of Codrus 
down to the deposition of Hippomenes. The condition of the 
people of Attica, however, appears to have been anything 
but happy under the rule of their nobles, who seem to have 
abused their power as much as the Roman patricians, when 
freed from the control of the king. Their oppression was 
felt more especially in the administration of the law, of which 
they were the sole makers and expounders, and in regard to 
which they might indulge the greatest license, because there 
were no written laws. This circumstance led in b. c. 624 


184 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


to the appointment of Draco for the purpose of drawing np a 
code of laws. We do not know what was the cause of the 
extraordinary severity to which his laws owe their celebrity, 
but as they were written, they necessarily limited the powers 
of the nobles, and hence we may infer that they had been 
compelled to make this concession to the growing discontent 
of the commonalty. The laws framed by Draco were so stern 
that they were said to be written in blood. All offences were 
in his eyes equally deserving of death as their punishment; 
and it is possible that it was owing to the unpopularity of his 
laws that Draco was obliged to quit his native city and go to 
iEgina, where he died. 

9. The discontent of the commonalty, instead of being 
allayed, now rose to such a pitch, that the people would 
readily have yielded to the rule of a tyrant in order to get 
rid of that of the nobles. In b. c. 612, Cylon, one of the 
nobles, formed a conspiracy to overthrow the government 
and make himself master of Athens. In this enterprise he 
relied upon the assistance of Theagenes, tyrant of Megara, 
and more especially on the general dissatisfaction of the 
people; but before entering upon it he consulted the Delphic 
oracle, the obscure answer of which led him to commence his 
operations at a wrong period. With the aid of a body of 
foreign troops furnished by Theagenes, he made himself master 
of the Acropolis; but his auxiliaries deprived him of the 
confidence and support of the Athenian people. His brother 
nobles called in the forces from all parts of the country and 
besieged him. During the blockade Cylon and his brother 
made their escape, but their followers were in the end 
compelled to surrender to the archon Megacles, son of 
Alcmaeon, on condition that their lives should be spared. 
The archons, however, broke their promise, and not only 
slew their prisoners, but even killed some of them at the 
altars of the Eumenides or Furies, at which they had taken 


SOLON. 185 

refuge. As this crime was committed with the sanction of 
Megacles, he and all his house were henceforth looked upon 
as accursed persons, whose lives were forfeited to the gods, 
and the surviving partisans of Cylon did not fail to foster the 
belief that all the disasters which came upon Athens were 
the result of the divine wrath provoked by the sacrilege of 
Megacles. These superstitious alarms only increased the 
political ferment which was already going on, and it was 
evident that some extraordinary measure must be resorted to 
to prevent civil war, or even the ruin of the whole state. 

10. The man who was thought by all parties the most fit 
to undertake the regeneration of his country, and who by his 
wisdom and moderation was likely to satisfy the reasonable 
demands of all, was Solon, son of Execestides, and a descen¬ 
dant of the house of Codrus. He had been long absent from 
his country on foreign travel, during which he had amassed 
treasures of knowledge and had formed friendships with the 
most illustrious men of his age. He returned soon after the 
suppression of the Cylonian conspiracy, and found his country 
in a most deplorable condition, and so weak as to be unable 
even to resist the Megarians, who had taken possession of 
the island of Salamis. The repeated vain attempts to 
recover it had completely broken the spirit of the Athenians; 
but Solon by a ruse once more stirred up their enthusiasm. 
He himself was appointed commander of the expedition, and 
in a single campaign drove the Megarians from the island, in 
b. c. 604. This success raised his fame still higher. With 
the assistance of the moderate nobles he prevailed upon 
Megacles and his party to submit their case to the decision of 
a court of three hundred men of their own order. The 
court declared them all guilty, and in b. c. 597 all the 
Alcmaeonids were sent into exile, and even the remains of 
the dead were removed beyond the frontiers of Attica. In 
order to propitiate the gods completely, it was necessary to 


186 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


purify the city, and for this purpose Solon invited Epimenides 
of Crete, one generally regarded as a sage of superhuman 
wisdom, who had enjoyed personal intercourse with the gods. 
On his arrival he performed certain rites which pacified the 
superstitious minds of the Athenians, and having made some 
religious arrangements, he returned home with tokens of the 
warmest gratitude. 

11. Their minds being now freed from religious fears, 
the Athenians were in a more suitable condition to consider 
their political affairs with calmness. Many of the agricul¬ 
tural population had been reduced to a state of absolute 
dependence; their political rights, if they had any, w T ere 
merely nominal, and many when unable to pay their debts 
had been sold by their creditors as slaves into foreign 
countries; for the Athenian law of debt was as severe as 
that of Rome, empowering a creditor to seize his insolvent 
debtor and to sell him abroad as a slave. Those who groaned 
under such tyranny were eager only for a change, unconcerned 
about the means of effecting it. The eupatrids, being the owners 
of the fertile plains of the country, wished to keep things as 
they were. The inhabitants of the hilly districts, mostly 
shepherds and poor peasants, though less exposed to the rapa¬ 
city and cruelty of the nobles than the lowland peasantry, 
were anxious for reforms which should secure them the same 
rights as those possessed by their lords. The men of the 
coast, chiefly merchants and traders, were averse to violent 
measures, hut nevertheless joined with the rest in demanding 
reforms which should put an end to all reasonable complaints. 
Under these circumstances Solon was chosen, with the consent 
of all parties, to mediate between them, and under the title of 
archon he was invested, in b.c. 594, with full authority to frame 
a new constitution and a code of laws. His task consisted of 
two parts : the first and most pressing business was to relieve 
the present distress of the commonalty, and the second to 


LEGISLATION OF SOLON. 


137 


prevent the recurrence of the same or similar evils, by regu¬ 
lating the rights and duties of the citizens on principles of 
justice and fairness. His first measure accordingly was a 
disburdening ordinance, which relieved the debtor without 
causing any great loss to the creditor. He then released the 
pledged lands and restored them to their owners, and, lastly, 
he abolished that part of the law of debt which authorised 
a creditor to seize and sell the person of his debtor. 

12. When these most urgent affairs were settled, Solon 
entered upon his second task by abolishing the laws of Draco, 
except those referring to murder; it would seem that by 
this measure, a number of exiles, and among them the family 
of Megacles, were restored to their country. Many foreigners 
also who had settled in Attica with their families, and 
had given up all connection with their own countries, were 
admitted as Athenian citizens. But the greatest change which 
he introduced, and which altogether changed the character of 
the Athenian constitution, was the substitution of property 
for birth, as the standard for determining the rights and 
duties of the citizens, although at first this change may 
have produced little effect, the nobles being naturally the 
wealthiest citizens; but the principle was changed, and the 
highest rights were placed within the reach of all. Ac¬ 
cording to their property, then, Solon divided all Athenians, 
both the nobles and the commonalty, into four classes. The 
first consisted of persons whose estates yielded a net yearly 
income or rent of five hundred medimni (a medimnus is about 
six pints more than a bushel) of dry or liquid produce; the 
second of those whose income amounted to three hundred 
medimni, and who were called Knights, being able to keep a 
war-horse; the third of those whose annual revenue amounted 
to two hundred, or more probably one hundred and fifty 
medimni, and who were termed Zeugitae (yoke-men), from 
their supposed ability to keep a yoke of oxen for the plough; 


183 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the fourth class, called thetes, comprised all those whose 
incomes fell below that of the third, and consisted mainly of 
free hired labourers. The highest offices of the state were 
accessible only to members of the first class, but minor offices 
were no doubt left open to members of the second and third* 
The duties of the citizens were determined by the classes to 
which they belonged ; thus the members of the second formed 
the cavalry, the third the heavy armed infantry, and the fourth, 
being excluded from all offices, served only as a light armed 
infantry, and were employed in later times in manning the 
fleets. In the popular assembly, the citizens of all the classes 
met on a footing of perfect equality, and its power from the 
first does not seem to have been limited to adopting or re¬ 
jecting the measures laid before it by the senate, but the 
assembly might modify or amend the proposals at its discre¬ 
tion. The magistrates retained, in the constitution of Solon, 
their ancient powers, but became responsible for their exercise 
to the whole body of citizens. Their judicial functions also 
remained the same, but an appeal was left open against their 
verdicts to popular courts numerously composed of citizens of 
all classes indiscriminately. The democratic principle had 
thus acquired considerable strength even as early as the time 
of Solon, but the legislator had endeavoured to check its 
power by two great councils, the senate of Four Hundred, 
and the Areopagus. 

13. The senate of Four Hundred, called bule, is uniformly 
regarded by the ancients as an institution of Solon; at all 
events, it must be admitted that he fixed its number at four 
hundred, and that he gave it a more popular constitution by 
making it the representative of the classes, though the fourth 
was excluded. The qualifications for being elected a member 
of the bule were a certain amount of property and a certain 
age, no one under thirty years being eligible. They held 
their dignity for only one year, after which they were liable 


LEGISLATION OF SOLON. 


189 


to be taken to account for their conduct. The principal part 
of their business was to prepare the measures which were to 
be brought before the assembly of the people, and to preside 
at its deliberations. But the senate also had extensive powers 
connected with the finances and other subjects of administra¬ 
tion. The second council, the Areopagus, is likewise called 
an institution of Solon, though according to the Attic legends 
it had existed from time immemorial. The functions of the 
Areopagus are involved in great obscurity ; but we know that 
it took cognisance of cases of wilful murder, maiming, poison¬ 
ing, and arson, and that besides these judicial functions, it 
also had political powers. 

The ordinary assemblies of the people (ecclesiae) seem to 
have been held at most once in every month; the votes were 
taken by show of hands, and without any distinction of classes, 
so that the wote of the humblest Athenian was as weighty as 
that of the wealthiest, and every voter was allowed to speak. 
The right to take part in the business of the assembly began 
at the age of twenty, but those who had passed the age of 
fifty were called upon to speak first. 

The popular courts above alluded to consisted of a body 
of six thousand citizens, called the Heliaea, which was created 
every year by lot to form a supreme court. Every citizen, 
after attaining the age of thirty, might become a member of 
it. Solon’s object seems to have been to make this court 
the guardian of the constitution rather than the minister of 
the laws. Hence we find it generally engaged in proceedings 
against illegal or unconstitutional measures, even when they 
had been sanctioned by the popular assembly. 

14. Being convinced that no constitution, however wisely 
framed, could remain in force at all times and under altered 
circumstances, he made provision for periodical revisions and 
improvements of the laws; and this task was left to the 
citizens, for a class of men making the law a special 


190 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


object of their study did not exist at Athens. His legisla¬ 
tion, like that of most ancient lawgivers, interfered with the 
affairs of private and social life much more than the laws of 
modern states, but still Solon did not in this respect go so far 
as Lycurgus had gone. Up to the age of sixteen the educa¬ 
tion of youths was left entirely to their parents or guardians; 
during the next two years they were trained in gymnastic 
exercises under public teachers, who kept them under severe 
discipline. At the age of eighteen they entered upon their 
apprenticeship in arms, during which they had to perform 
several duties for the protection of their country. At the 
end of these two years they were admitted to all the rights 
of a citizen, for which the law did not prescribe a more 
advanced age; and until the age of sixty they were liable to 
be called upon to perform military services. The regulations 
regarding the female sex were very stringent, and prevented 
their appearance in public as much as possible; their educa¬ 
tion was discouraged rather than otherwise, whence in later 
times they were generally ill suited to make agreeable and 
useful companions to their husbands. 

15. Solon was the first to perceive the advantageous 
position of Athens for becoming a maritime state, and it was 
he who laid the foundation of the Attic navy, by enacting 
that each of the forty-eight divisions called naucrariae, into 
which the four tribes were subdivided, should equip a galley; 
he also encouraged commerce and manufactures by inducing 
foreigners to settle in Attica, and granting them protection 
and certain privileges. These resident aliens (called metoeci), 
however, had to pay a small alien-tax, and to place themselves 
under the protection of an Athenian citizen, who acted as their 
patron. The condition of the slaves remained on the whole 
what it had been before, and although in Attica they were in 
better circumstances than in other parts of Greece, the law 
yet sanctioned certain things which are revolting to human 


PISISTRATUS. 


191 


nature; and Solon in this respect did not rise above the 
prejudices of his age and country. 

16. The laws of Solon were inscribed on wooden tablets, 
and were at first kept in the Acropolis, but afterwards for 
greater convenience they were set up in the Prytaneum, the 
residence of the committee of the senate. After the comple¬ 
tion of his legislation, Solon is said to have travelled for ten 
years; and during his peregrinations to have become ac¬ 
quainted with Croesus, king of Lydia, and Amasis, the ruler 
of Egypt, but these statements are irreconcilable with chro¬ 
nology. On his return to Athens, about b.c. 562, he found 
that faction had been busily engaged in attempting to pervert 
and undo his work. The three parties, of the plain, the 
highlands, and the coast, had revived their ancient feuds. 
The first was now headed by Lycurgus, the second by Mega- 
cles, an Alcmaeonid, and the third by Pisistratus, a kinsman 
and friend of Solon. The attempts of Solon to restore 
peace and union were of no avail; and Pisistratus, a man of 
great eloquence and liberality, had resolved to renew the 
attempt of Cylon. One day he pretended to have been 
attacked by his enemies : exhibiting his wounds to the 
people, and representing that they were the fruit of his 
attachment to the popular cause, he easily prevailed upon 
the multitude to grant him a body-guard for his personal 
safety. With this force he made himself master of the 
Acropolis, and Megacles and his friends quitted the city. 
Solon after having in vain made every effort against the 
tyrant, withdrew from public life, and Lycurgus and his 
party seem to have quietly submitted to the authority of 
Pisistratus, whose tyrannis commenced in b.c. 560. He 
avoided all display of power, being satisfied with the sub¬ 
stance of it, and conducted himself outwardly as a simple 
citizen. Solon, whose advice the tyrant occasionally asked, 
died soon after, b.c. 559. But Lycurgus, who had only 


192 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


waited for an opportunity, formed a coalition with Megacles, 
and their united efforts compelled Pisistratus to quit Athene, 
his tyrannis having probably lasted not much more than one 
year. 

17. The people do not appear to have been much pleased 
with their new rulers, and as each of the two was only thinking 
how he could get rid of his rival, Megacles, who was parti¬ 
cularly disappointed in his expectations, entered into nego¬ 
tiations with Pisistratus, gave him his daughter in marriage, 
and promised to assist him. in recovering his lost position. 
Pisistratus entered into the scheme, and was conveyed back 
to Athens in a manner w r hich even struck the historian Hero¬ 
dotus by its childish simplicity. When Pisistratus was re¬ 
stored he offended Megacles by not treating his daughter as 
a wufe. Her father and his friends, indignant at the insult, 
once more made common cause with Lycurgus, and drove 
Pisistratus from the city. The exiled tyrant now w r ent to 
Eretria in Euboea, and is said to have been inclined to give 
up all further attempts to recover what he had lost; but his 
eldest son Hippias urged him on not to despair. Accordingly 
he made preparations, and formed connections with powerful 
tyrants in other parts of Greece. Ten years were spent in 
these preliminaries, and at the end of this period he landed 
with an army of mercenaries at Marathon. The government 
of his adversaries had not been popular during his long absence; 
they assembled their forces, but wuint of care and circumspec¬ 
tion brought about their defeat on the road from Athens to 
Marathon. Pisistratus immediately proclaimed an amnesty, 
on condition of his enemies quietly dispersing to their homes. 
This act disarmed his opponents, and Pisistratus once more 
was undisputed master of Athens. 

18. He now endeavoured permanently to secure the pos¬ 
session of what he had so hardly won; and with this view 
he surrounded himself with a body of foreign mercenaries, 


PISISTRATUS. 


193 


and sent as hostages to Naxos the children of the nobles who 
had opposed him. At the same time he did all he could, by 
embellishing the city and extending its maritime power, to 
gain popularity among the Athenians ; and his success was 
so complete, that he maintained his position without any 
further interruption for a period of fourteen years, until his 
death in b.c. 527. The increased naval power of Athens is 
evident from the fact that Pisistratus was able to raise his 
friend Lygdamis to the tyrannis in Naxos, and recover for 
Athens the town of Sigeum on the Hellespont, which was 
then in the hands of the Mytileneans, with whom the 
Athenians had been at war about it for many years. Pisis¬ 
tratus entrusted the keeping of Sigeum to a natural son, 
Hegesistratus, and thus secured for himself a place of refuge, 
if fortune should ever again turn against him. At home he 
maintained the laws of Solon, and gained popularity by his 
munificence towards the poorer classes, while he removed 
some of them from the city, and obliged them to engage in 
rural occupations. He adorned Athens with many useful and 
ornamental works, such as a temple of Apollo, and one dedi¬ 
cated to the Olympian Zeus, of which however he had only 
laid the foundations when he died, and which was completed 
many centuries later by the emperor Hadrian. Among the 
monuments combining splendour and usefulness, were the 
Lyceum, a park at some distance from Athens, where stately 
buildings for exercises of the Athenian youth rose among shady 
groves ; and the fountain Callirrhoe. The expenses of these 
and other works were defrayed out of the revived tithe on the 
produce of the land, which accordingly was a tax levied on the 
rich for the purpose of giving employment to the poor. There 
is also a tradition that Pisistratus first collected the Homeric 
poems, which were until then scattered in unconnected 
rhapsodies ; at all events he certainly had a taste for litera¬ 
ture, for he was the first Greek that formed a library for the 

o 


194 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


o-ood of those who wished to avail themselves of it. On the 
whole, it must be owned that Pisistratus made most excellent 
use of his usurped power, and Athens has had few citizens to 
whom she owed a greater debt of gratitude than to Pisistratus. 
He died at an advanced age, thirty-three years after his first 
usurpation. 

19. The Athenians had become so accustomed to the 
mild rule of Pisistratus that his sons, Hippias, Hipparchus, 
and Thessalus, succeeded him without opposition. Hippias, 
the eldest, was at the head of affairs, but the three brothers 
appear to have acted with great unanimity. At first they 
followed in the footsteps of their father, and Hipparchus, in 
particular, seems to have inherited his father's literary taste, 
though they seem not to have been very scrupulous about 
the means of getting rid of persons who had incurred then- 
hatred or jealousy. But still the country was happy and 
prosperous under them, and the Pisistratids might have 
governed Athens for many generations, had not an event 
occurred which led to their overthrow and a complete change 
in the government. Harmodius, a young Athenian, bad been 
grossly insulted by Hipparchus, and, instigated by his friend 
Aristogeiton, he meditated revenge. The two friends resolved 
to overthrow the ruling dynasty, and they and their comrades 
fixed on the festival of the Panathenaea as the time for execut¬ 
ing their design. Hipparchus was killed during the procession, 
but Harmodius also fell in the fray. Aristogeiton was taken, 
and all those who were found to carry daggers were arrested. 
This happened in b. c. 514. Aristogeiton was tried and put 
to death, but took revenge by denouncing the most intimate 
friends of Hippias as conspirators. Henceforth fear and sus¬ 
picion gained the ascendancy in the tyrant’s mind, and 
he became stern and cruel. Executions were now things of 
common occurrence, and the taxes were increased, not for 
the public service, but to fill the tyrant’s own coffers; and 


THE PIS1STRATIDS. 


195 


seeing that he was hated and detested at home, he endeavoured 
to strengthen himself by foreign alliances. Thus he gave 
his daughter in marriage to the son of the tyrant of Lampsa- 
cos, a protege of Darius, king of Persia. But all this could 
not avert the storm which he was daily conjuring up against 
himself. 

20. The exiled Alcmaeonids, perceiving the unpopularity 
of Hippias, and being abundantly supplied with money, 
resolved once more to try to effect their return and over- 
throw their rivals. Cleisthenes, who was then at their 
head, secured the favour of the Delphic oracle by extraor¬ 
dinary liberality, and hence, whenever after this the Spartans 
consulted the oracle, they received but one answer bid¬ 
ding them restore Athens to freedom, until at length they 
resolved to send an army into Attica to expel Hippias with 
his family. On their first landing at Phaleron they were 
defeated by the Thessalian auxiliaries of Hippias ; but in a 
second expedition under Cleomenes, the Thessalians were 
routed, and Hippias alarmed sent his children out of the 
country. They fell, however, into the hands of the Spartans, 
who restored them to their father only on condition of his quit¬ 
ting Attica. Accordingly Hippias, in b. c. 510, left Athens, 
and for a time took up his residence at Sigeum. After his 
departure his friends and adherents were treated with great 
severity. A sentence of perpetual banishment was pronounced 
against the Pisistratids, and Harmodius and Aristogeiton 
received almost heroic honours. 

21. After these events, Cleisthenes, following in the foot¬ 
steps of Pisistratus, attached himself to the popular party in 
opposition to the nobles, and planned a great change in the 
constitution, which should for ever break the power of the aris¬ 
tocracy. Having gained the confidence of the commonalty, 
and the sanction of the Delphic oracle, he abolished the four 
ancient tribes, and made a new geographical division of 


196 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Attica into ten tribes, each of which was subdivided into 
a number of districts called demi, each containing some 
town or village as its centre. Each of these townships was 
governed by a local magistrate called demarch, and every 
Athenian citizen was obliged to be enrolled as a member of 
some demos. At the same time Cleisthenes admitted many 
aliens and even slaves to the franchise, whereby he increased 
the strength of his own party. These reforms changed the 
commonalty into a new body, furnished with new organs, and 
breathing a new spirit, which had shaken off all control of 
the old nobility. In accordance with the number of ten 
tribes, the senate was increased from four hundred to five 
hundred, fifty being taken from each tribe. The popular 
assembly henceforth was convened regularly four times in 
every month ; the Heliaea was subdivided into ten lesser 
courts, but the number of the archons remained unchanged. 
Cleisthenes is also said to have instituted the famous process 
of ostracism, by which the people were enabled to get rid of 
any citizen who had made himself formidable or suspected, 
and that without* any proof or even imputation of guilt. 

22. The party of the nobles naturally detested the revo¬ 
lutionary proceedings of Cleisthenes as much as their author, 
and, urged on by their leader Isagoras, they contrived to win the 
Spartans over to their side. Cleomenes, the king of Sparta, 
accordingly demanded of the Athenians to banish the accursed 
race of the Alcmaeonids. Cleisthenes, either dreading the cry 
which had so often been disastrous to his family, or unwilling 
to expose his country to a hostile invasion, withdrew from 
Athens. The Spartan king, however, not satisfied with this, 
but bent upon raising his friend Isagoras to the tyrannis, 
invaded Attica with an army, and, acting as if he were 
sole master of the country, banished seven hundred families 
marked out by Isagoras, and then took steps to change the 
government of Athens into an oligarchy. But this attempt 


CLEISTHENES. 


197 


roused the spirit of the people, who besieged him and Isagoras 
in the Acropolis. After a few days they were obliged to 
capitulate; the Spartans and Isagoras were permitted to 
depart, but all their Athenian adherents were put to death, 
and Cleisthenes, with the seven hundred exiled families, 
triumphantly returned to Athens in b. c. 508. 

23. Cleomenes having secured the alliance of the Corin¬ 
thians, Boeotians, and Chalcidians, determined to wipe off the 
disgrace of the defeat he had sustained, by another invasion 
of Attica, which was now attacked on several sides; but some 
of his allies began to feel ashamed of what they were doing, 
and returned home; and as the two Spartan kings also could 
not agree as to their plan of operation, the enterprise was 
abandoned. In this distress, Athens had sent envoys to 
Sardis, to seek the protection of Persia, but the embassy had 
no effect, and is interesting only as the first occasion on which 
a Greek state had any dealings with Persia. After the 
Spartans had withdrawn, the Athenians set out to chastise the 
Boeotians, whom they defeated, and of whom they took seven 
hundred prisoners ; they then crossed over into Euboea, where 
they were equally successful; they deprived the rich Chalcidian 
landowners of their estates, and distributed them among 
four thousand Attic colonists who settled there, but retained 
their franchise. Athens, thus freed from internal as well as 
external enemies, became strong and powerful in the enjoy¬ 
ment of political liberty. So long as she had been ruled by 
her nobles, she had at times scarcely been able to cope with 
the weakest among her neighbours, but now she advanced far 
ahead of them all. And this is the best proof of the wisdom 
of Cleisthenes, who, no doubt, well understood the temper and 
character of his countrymen. 

24. But the foreign enemies of Athens were only hushed 
for a time, and were secretly plotting against her. The 
Boeotians, burning to avenge their defeat, allied themselves 


198 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


with the iEginetans, ancient enemies of Athens ; and while 
they invaded Attica from the north, the iEginetans, with 
their powerful navy, ravaged the coasts. This war, in 
which Athens learnt the necessity of increasing her fleet, 
lasted, with various interruptions, for about fifty years, and 
terminated in b. c. 456, in the subjugation of iEgina, and 
the destruction of its navy. 

The Spartans, in the meantime, had discovered that they 
had been imposed upon by the Delphic priestess who had led 
them to assist in the expulsion of the Pisistratids. This, and 
the fear of the growing power of Athens, led them to invite 
Hippias to return to Athens. He was to be supported by 
Sparta and all her allies, and a congress of them was convened 
to consider the measures to be adopted. At this congress the 
Corinthian deputy, Sosicles, strongly objected to the scheme 
of setting up a tyrant among a free people, and, encouraged 
by his eloquence, all the other deputies, with one accord, 
declared against the proposal of the Spartans. The design 
was accordingly abandoned, and Hippias soon afterwards pro¬ 
ceeded to the court of Darius, where he did his best to stimu¬ 
late the barbarians to a war against his own country. 


CHAPTER V. 

GREEK COLONIES, AND THE PROGRESS OF ART AND LITERATURE 
FROM THE HOMERIC AGE TO THE PERSIAN WARS. 

1. A migratory disposition, and a certain degree of restless¬ 
ness, often induced bodies of Greeks to quit their native land, 
and to open for themselves new fields of enterprise in foreign 
countries. All the shores of the Mediterranean and Black 
sea were covered with their colonies in such numbers, that 



GREEK COLONIES. 


199 


even about tbe year b. c. 600 they are said to have amounted 
to two hundred and fifty. But while they thus established 
themselves in all parts round the basins of those two seas, 
they at the same time possessed the talent of maintaining 
and preserving their national character wherever they went, 
and by this means they diffused the Greek language and 
civilisation in all countries where they formed settlements. 
The causes of their migrations were sometimes war and con¬ 
quest, sometimes discord and party strife at home, sometimes 
over-population and poverty, and in later times, also, com¬ 
mercial interests. On quitting their native city, they took 
with them the sacred fire from the public hearth, for colonies 
continued at all times to maintain towards the mother city 
a relation similar to that of a daughter towards a parent; 
they retained the customs, institutions, and religious observ¬ 
ances of the mother city, showed it their respect on certain 
solemn occasions, and never carried on war against it, unless 
compelled by dire necessity. They did not, however, enter 
into a relation of dependence on the mother state, but were 
entirely free in their internal administration and government, 
though, when visited by misfortunes from domestic or foreign 
enemies, a colony naturally looked to the mother city for aid 
and protection. 

2. We have already spoken* of the earliest or iEolian 
colonies, which were founded immediately, or soon after the 
Trojan war. The main body of the emigrants is said to have 
first landed at Lesbos, where they founded six towns. Other 
detachments occupied the opposite coasts of Asia Minor, from 
mount Ida to the mouth of the river Hermus. This part of 
the coast was until then in the hands of Pelasgian tribes, 
which easily amalgamated with the new settlers into one 
people. Cyme was the principal of the eleven iEolian cities 
which thus sprang up on the Asiatic coast; and Cyme and 

* See pp. 151, 157. 


200 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Lesbos founded thirty others in the territory called Troas. 
It is not certain whether these iEolian colonies were united 
by any religious or political bond like those by which the 
Ionian and Dorian colonies on the same coast were kept 
together. The coast country south of iEolis, from the river 
Hermus to the Maeander, was occupied by the Ionian colonies, 
consisting chiefly of the Ionians who had been dislodged by the 
conquest of Peloponnesus by the Dorians.* On their passage 
across the iEgean, many formed settlements in the Cyclades 
and other islands, and in the course of time the little island of 
Delos came to be considered as the common centre of the Ionian 
race. The Asiatic coast occupied by these emigrants was 
inhabited by Pelasgians, Carians, and Leleges, the last two 
of which tribes were expelled or exterminated. Twelve cities 
or states were formed, of which Miletus occupied the first 
rank ; all claimed sons or kinsmen of Codrus, king of Athens, 
for their ancestral heroes. Ten of the twelve Ionian cities had 
existed before the arrival of the new settlers, but Clazomenae 
and Phocaea were founded by the Ionians themselves. Chios 
and Samos were likewise occupied by Ionians, and Smyrna was 
added to the confederacy at a later time, in the place of Melite, 
which was destroyed by the other members of the league. 

3. The south-western corner of Asia Minor and the adja¬ 
cent islands were occupied about the same time by colonists 
of the Doric race; for some of the Dorian conquerors them¬ 
selves were drawn into the tide of migration, and led bands 
of their own race and of the conquered Achaeans to the coast 
of Asia Minor. The most celebrated of these expeditions was 
that of Althaemenes of Argos, who led colonists to Crete and 
Rhodes. Halicarnassus was founded by Dorians from Troezen, 
Cnidus by others from Laconia, and a third band from Epi- 
daurus took possession of the Island of Cos. These six 
Dorian cities formed an association, and after the exclusion of 

* Comp. pp. 158-9. 


GREEK COLONIES. 


201 


Halicarnassus, they constituted what is called the Dorian pen* 
tapolis. There existed, however, many other Dorian towns, 
both on the coast and far inland, but they formed no part of 
this confederation. When the tide of these migrations had 
passed, and the affairs of Greece had become settled, a long 
period elapsed before fresh colonies were established in distant 
regions. The countries which next attracted the attention 
of the enterprising Greeks were the south of Italy (Magna 
Graecia) and the island of Sicily. The colonies founded on 
these western shores, like those in the east, were partly iEolian 
or Achaean, partly Dorian, and partly Ionian ; but the Ionians 
of Chalcis in Euboea were the first who gained a permanent 
footing in the west, for the Ionian Cuma in Campania was by 
common consent the most ancient Greek settlement in those 
parts. It had existed, however, a long time before other 
adventurers followed in the same track, and it was not till b. c. 
735 that Theocles, an Athenian, led a colony of Chalcidians 
from Euboea and Naxos to Sicily, and established the town 
of Naxos. After this commencement, a number of other Chal- 
cidian colonies followed in rapid succession, such as Leontini, 
Catana, Messene, and Rhegium, on the opposite coast of Italy. 

3. But the most powerful colonies of Sicily were of Doric 
origin. Of these, Syracuse was founded in b. c. 734 by Corin¬ 
thians, who also established themselves in Corcyra, and in 
many other parts of the coast of the Adriatic. Syracuse, in 
its turn, became the metropolis of many other Sicilian towns, 
among which Camarina was the most important. Megara 
planted her most flourishing colonies on the coasts of the 
Propontis and the Bosporus, where, in b. c. 658, she founded 
Byzantium; but Megarian emigrants also founded Hybla in 
Sicily, which, in b. c. 629, became the parent of Selinus. 
Gela was founded in b. c. 690 by a body of Cretans and Rho¬ 
dians, and in b. c. 582 sent out a band of settlers, who founded 
Agrigentum on the Acragas. Himera, on the north coast, 


202 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


was founded by colonists from Messene, and Dorians who had 
been banished from Syracuse. Within half a century after 
the first Greek settlements in Sicily, most of the great cities 
in southern Italy were founded. Sybaris, Croton, Locri, 
Tarentum, and Metapontum, extended and secured the domi¬ 
nion of the Greeks in Italy by a number of new colonies, 
among which we need only mention Posidonia (Paestum), 
the ruins of which still attest its former greatness. 

The country of Cyrene, on the north coast of Africa, pos¬ 
sessed of inexhaustible wealth and a delightful climate, was 
colonised by the island of Thera, and the city of Cyrene itself 
founded four other towns in the same district. The Libyans 
of those p>arts seem to have yielded to the invaders without 
much opposition; and when at a later time they began to be. 
alarmed about the growing power of the Greeks, they were 
defeated with terrible slaughter, and the dominion of the Greeks 
was firmly* established in that part of Africa. Cyrene was 
governed for a time by kings, like the mother country; but 
about b.c. 637 there came an influx of additional settlers, and 
this seems to have made the people dissatisfied with their 
institutions. Demonax of Mantinea being invited to frame a 
new constitution, divided the people into three tribes, the first 
consisting of the descendants of the original settlers ; the king 
was stripped of all his substantial powers; but afterwards a 
counter-revolution having been brought about, the government 
became a tyrannis. 

4. The two groups of Greek colonies in Asia, the Ionian 
and the Dorian, formed each a kind of confederacy, though it 
was very loose, and far from uniting them into two compact 
political bodies. Each group had its periodical meetings for 
the celebration of festivals in honour of a tutelary divinity, but 
these meetings, at most, afforded an opportunity of discussing 
political matters in case of need. The meetings of Ionians 
were held at the foot of mount Mycale, on a spot called Panio- 


GREEK COLONIES. 


203 


nium, and sacred to Poseidon; and tiiose of the Dorians 
near a temple of Apollo, on the Triopian headland. None of 
the Greeks in Asia ever rose to the idea of a real political 
confederacy, like that subsisting among the Lycian towns, 
although the fact of their being exposed to the attacks of 
Asiatic barbarians ought to have induced them to strengthen 
themselves by union. Had they done so, their own history, 
and even that of the mother country, might have been very 
different from what it was. But this want of unity did not 
affect the prosperity of the several cities ; on the contrary, in 
many respects their progress was so rapid that they outstripped 
the mother country itself. About the very time when the 
Greek states in Europe abolished royalty and established 
republican institutions, the same took place in the colonies 
of Asia. Miletus became a most powerful maritime state, and 
the parent of numerous colonies in Asia and on the coasts of 
the Euxine, which extended the empire of the Greeks to most 
distant regions. In comparison with the active and enterpris¬ 
ing spirit of the Ionians, the iEolians and Dorians remained 
stationary. But it was not only commerce and wealth that 
had charms for the Ionians; they also took the lead in the 
cultivation of the fine arts and of literature. The Euxine 
lost its terrors, when opened by the Milesians, while other 
Ionians turned their attention to the west. The Phocaeans 
founded Emporiae in Spain, and about b. c. 600 Massilia in 
Gaul, where they spread civilisation and the use of the Greek 
alphabet among the Celts. The Rhodians, who form an excep¬ 
tion to the general character of the Doric colonies in Asia, also 
founded settlements in Spain and Gaul. We have already 
had occasion to mention that about the year b. c. 650 Psam- 
metichus, king of Egypt, induced Greeks to go to his dominions, 
and allowed them to settle there.* This brief survey at once 
shows that there was not a country round the basin of the 

♦ See p. 122. 


204 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Mediterranean, that was not more or less influenced and 
benefited by the mild genius of Greek culture and civilisation. 

5. While the Asiatic Greeks were flourishing in freedom, 
commerce, wealth, arts, and arms, the kingdom of Lydia 
gradually encroached upon their territory, and in the end 
crushed their independence. Gyges, the first Lydian king of 
the Mermnad dynasty, took Colophon, and invaded the terri¬ 
tories of Smyrna and Miletus. Under his successor Ardys, 
P'riene was subdued, while Sadyattes and Alyattes waged war 
against Miletus for many years, until in b. c. 612 a peace and 
alliance were concluded between Lydia and Miletus. Croesus 
conquered Ephesus, but treated it leniently; and in a short 
time all the Greek towns of the continent were compelled to 
acknowledge him as their master. Croesus, being an admirer 
of the Greeks, and a lover of their culture, treated them in such 
a manner that they felt his rule scarcely in anything else 
than the necessity of paying tribute to him, for they were per¬ 
mitted to regulate their own internal affairs as they pleased. 
He is also said to have contemplated the subjugation of the 
neighbouring islands, but was cautioned against it, and con¬ 
fined himself to extending his kingdom towards the east. In 
this he succeeded so far as to make himself master of the 
whole of Asia Minor to the river Halys—Lycia and Cilicia 
alone maintaining their independence. The fame of Croesus 
resounded throughout Greece, and his liberality towards the 
Greeks was unbounded. 1l the end he became involved in a 
contest with Cyrus, who made Croesus his captive, and himself 
master of the kingdom of Lydia, including the Greek colonies, 
b. c. 546.* The Lydians were deprived of their arms, and 
compelled by their conquerors to devote themselves to the arts 
of peace and luxury, in consequence of which they lost their 
warlike character, and sunk into effeminacy. As Cyrus him¬ 
self was obliged to return to his eastern provinces, he left the 

* Comp. pp. 61 and 95. 


HISTORY OF THE ASIATIC GREEKS. 


205 


task of completing the conquest of the Greek colonies to his 
lieutenants. The Greeks were willing to submit to the 
Persians on the same terms which had been granted to them by 
Croesus; but as unconditional surrender was demanded, they 
prepared for resistance. Envoys were sent to Sparta for 
assistance, but in vain, and Mazares, a Median general of 
Cyrus, took the towns of Priene and Magnesia. Harpagus, 
the successor of Mazares, vigorously pressed the Ionian cities. 
The inhabitants of Phocaea, finding that resistance was hope¬ 
less, emigrated to the western parts of the Mediterranean, 
where they had already planted some colonies. They first 
sailed to Alalia in Corsica, but being attacked there by the 
Carthaginians and Etruscans, some sailed to their countrymen 
in Massilia, and others to Rhegium in southern Italy, where 
they founded Elea. The example of Phocaea was followed 
by Teos, whose inhabitants sailed to the coast of Thrace, where 
they founded the city of Abdera. In this manner all the Ionian 
cities were conquered by Harpagus, and even some of the 
islands endeavoured to avert greater calamities by voluntary 
submission. 

6. After the conquest of the iEolian and Ionian cities, 
Harpagus advanced southward. The Carians submitted 
without a struggle; but Lycia determined to defend its ancient 
liberty. The men of Xanthus, when besieged by the Persians, 
burnt their city with their wives and children, and then sallying 
forth died sword in hand. Other towns followed the same 
example, but whatever did not bend to the will of the conqueror, 
was broken and ground to dust, so that after a short time the 
whole of Asia Minor was obliged to acknowledge the sove¬ 
reignty of Persia. The Persian rule was perhaps not much 
more oppressive than that of Croesus had been ; but the mis¬ 
fortune was, that the Asiatic Greeks might be compelled by 
their new masters to fight against their own kinsmen in Europe. 
However, during the reign of Cambyses, they remained quiet, 


206 


IITSTORY OF GREECE. 


and the islands which had at first submitted were almost 
quite free, as the Persians had no fleet to enforce their com¬ 
mands. Samos was then governed by the powerful tyrant 
Polycrates, and possessed a fleet of one hundred galleys. He 
became involved in a war with Miletus which brought him 
into conflict with Persia. In order to avoid this, and at the 
same time to gain a powerful ally in Cambyses against secret 
enemies at home, he assisted the Persian monarch with a 
portion of his fleet against Egypt, taking care to embark those 

men whom he had most reason to fear. But as the design 

/ 

was discovered, the fleet turned against him, and being un¬ 
successful, the men solicited aid from Sparta against the tyrant. 
The Spartan auxiliaries, though strengthened by a band of 
Corinthians, were unable to effect anything, and the exiled 
Samians, after ranging for some time as pirates in the AEgean, 
finally established themselves at Cydonia in Crete. Polycrates, 
now stronger than ever, resumed his old plan of extending 
his dominion by the aid of Persia; but being treacherously 
enticed to go to Sardes, he was seized and hung upon a cross, 
b. c. 522. The Samians who had accompanied him were 
dismissed, and the satrap made an attempt to gain possession of 
Samos. The Greek cities of Asia continued, without much 
molestation from Persia, to live in peace and prosperity, until, in 
the reign of Darius, they allowed themselves to be enticed by an 
unprincipled adventurer into open rebellion against their rulers. 

7. The cultivation of the arts kept pace with the advance 
of public and private prosperity, especially among the Ionians 
in Asia, wno made more rapid progress even than the Greeks 
in the mother country. The same spirit which led the Ionians 
to commercial enterprises in distant lands, found employment 
at home in the cultivation of the arts which cheered and 
adorned their public and private life. Corinth and a few 
other Doric cities could even boast of early schools of art, but 
the Ionians surpassed them all, while Athens had as yet not 


ART AND LITERATURE. 


207 


emerged from its obscurity as a seat of art and literature. 
In Ionia and Samos temples of great splendour were erected 
at an early period, and the art of casting metal statues is said 
to have been invented in Samos. The progress which this 
and the sister arts made was extremely rapid. Sculpture in 
marble came into extensive use in consequence of its con¬ 
nection with architecture, the temples being sumptuously 
adorned with statues and figures in high relief. Statues 
intended for worship in the temples were generally of a typical 
character, and the artists were not allowed much freedom in 
their execution ; but the case became different when sculptures 
were employed as ornaments for the outside of temples and 
other public buildings. The custom of honouring the victors 
in the public games with statues contributed still more towards 
the rapid development of the art—an art in which the Greeks 
have never been equalled, much less surpassed. 

8. The same spirit which in art gradually brought about 
the union of truth and beauty also gave birth to new branches 
and forms of poetry. The first period of Greek literature is 
marked by the names of Homer and Hesiod, the former repre¬ 
senting its beginning, and the latter its close; but we must 
not imagine that these poets were the only ones that adorned 
the first dawn of Greek literature ; we have every reason to 
believe that the compositions and names of many others are 
lost, whose fame was eclipsed only by that of their great con¬ 
temporaries. Hesiod was, like Homer, the head of a poetical 
school, and among the works which have come down under 
his name, some are undoubtedly the productions of others. 
He was a native of Ascra in Boeotia, but the time at which 
he lived is as uncertain as that of Homer, though it is gene¬ 
rally assumed that he flourished after Homer, about b. c. 850. 
As Homer had been the poet of a conquering race of warriors, 
so Hesiod was the poet of the peaceful peasantry of Boeotia, 
for in this character he appears in his “Works and Days/' 


208 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the only composition which has always been regarded as 
genuine. 

9. Epic poetry, however, continued to flourish for two 
centuries after the beginning of the Olympiads, and the poets 
of this latter period are usually called the cyclic poets, because 
the subjects of their poems embraced a definite cycle or 
period of time. No subject, however, was excluded, from 
the origin of the world down to the close of the heroic age; 
but as the poetical interest in these compositions was subor¬ 
dinate to the desire to represent the events in their natural 
order of succession, these poems were the forerunners of his¬ 
tory. We have no specimens of Greek lyric poetry as ancient 
as Homer, though we have no reason for believing that it 
was not cultivated at a very remote period; but it reached the 
summit of perfection at the time when epic poetry was dying 
away. Unfortunately, however, all the works of the Greek 
lyrists have perished, with the exception of the epinician odes of 
Pindar. The few fragments of the other great lyric poets, how¬ 
ever, are sufficient to justify the admiration of the ancients, 
and to show us how much we have to lament the loss of 
those masterpieces of the Greek muse. Lyric poetry was 
cultivated especially by the Dorians and JEolians, and with 
the former the themes were chiefly religious, martial, or poli¬ 
tical, while with the others they were more of a sentimental 
character. The grand choral poetry, which was peculiar to 
the Dorians, was brought to perfection by Arion and Stesi- 
chorus, and formed the element out of which afterwards the 
Athenian Thespis developed the Attic tragedy by the intro¬ 
duction of recitation by a performer. The most illustrious 
among the iEolian and Ionian lyrists are Archilochus, Hippo- 
nax, Alcaeus, on the one hand, and Anacreon, Ibycus, Mim- 
nermus, and Sappho, on the other. 

10. Prose was cultivated in Greece, as in all other coun¬ 
tries, at a much later period than poetry, and Pherecydes of 


PHILOSOPHY. 


209 


Syros, who lived about b. c. 550, is said to have been the 
first prose writer in Greece, and Cadmus of Miletus to have 
first applied prose to historical subjects. The first attempts 
in historical composition were mythological, and probably 
consisted of paraphrases in prose of portions of the epic cycle. 
Writers of this class could have no higher aim than to amuse 
and to gratify patriotic vanity, or the popular taste for the 
marvellous. 

A certain spirit of philosophical inquiry manifests itself 
among the Greeks from the very earliest times, as their 
poetry and religion amply testify; but philosophy as a dis¬ 
tinct branch of study does not appear until the middle of the 
sixth century b. c. That time was the period of the Seven 
Sages, all practical men, and actively engaged. as statesmen, 
magistrates, or legislators. Their wdsdom accordingly was 
derived from their intercourse with the world, rather than 
from deep meditation or speculation. But at the same time 
a few of the bolder spirits were led by the contemplation of the 
universe to inquire after a first cause of all the visible pheno¬ 
mena. The most ancient school of philosophy was founded by 
Thales of Miletus, a contemporary of Solon. He maintained 
that water or some liquid was the origin of all things. Half 
a century later, Anaximenes, likewise a Milesian, taught that 
air was the universal source of life, and Heraclitus of Ephesus 
attributed the same power to fire or heat. The mighty 
problem which those infant philosophers set themselves to 
solve cannot but fill us with wonder and amazement, and, 
however defective their solutions were, they gradually led to 
the recognition of one supreme mind, distinct from the visible 
world, to which it imparted motion, form, and order. 

Nearly simultaneously with the Ionic school of philo¬ 
sophy, another sprang up at Elea or Yelia, a Phocaean colony 
in the south of Italy. Its founder Xenophanes had emigrated 
from Colophon to Elea about b. c. 536. His system was 

p 


210 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


based on the assumption of a supreme intelligence, which was 
identical with the world. His disciple Parmenides pursued 
his inquiries in the same direction, but set out from the idea 
of being, not from that of deity. His followers, Zeno and 
Melissus, were chiefly engaged in combating the opinions of 
other philosophers and of the vulgar. 

It is not known whether Thales wrote an exposition of 
his doctrines, but his disciple Anaximander did so in a prose 
work, and his example was followed by all the philosophers 
of the Ionic school. Xenophanes and Parmenides, on the 
other hand, explained their systems in verse, a mode which 
was also adopted by Empedocles of Agrigentum. The re¬ 
mains of these works breathe a strain of oracular solemnity 
and obscurity. 

11. The most celebrated of the western schools of philo¬ 
sophy was founded by Pythagoras of Samos, about b. c. 570. 
His history is very obscure, and partly mythical. It seems, 
however, certain that he gathered much information by 
travelling in foreign countries, such as Egypt. He is said to 
have been the first to assume the title of philosopher, that is, 
lover of wisdom. His mind appears to have been chiefly of 
a mathematical turn, and several discoveries in mathematics 
and astronomy are attributed to him. His fundamental 
doctrine was, that numbers represented the essence and pro¬ 
perties of all things. He also taught the immortality of the 
soul in the form of a transmigration, similar to that maintained 
by the Brahmins and Egyptians. 

On his return from his travels he went to the continent 
of Greece, being unable to endure the tyrannis of Polycrates, 
and then proceeded to Italy, fixing his residence at Croton. 
This city was distracted by the feuds between the nobles and 
the commonalty, but the influence of the former predominated, 
and Pythagoras proved a useful ally to them. He formed an 
order or society consisting of three hundred of the noblest 


SYBARIS AND CROTON. 


211 


young men collected from the Greek cities in Italy, through 
whom he hoped to exercise an influence upon all his country¬ 
men in the west. This society seems to have been at once a 
philosophical school, a religious brotherhood, and a political 
association of an aristocratic or oligarchic character. All the 
proceedings of this body were enveloped in great mystery, 
Neither Pythagoras himself nor his disciples appear to have 
intended to come forward as reformers or lawgivers, but rather 
to exercise a quiet and gradual influence on their countrymen 
by doctrine and example ; but he became involved in a poli¬ 
tical contest in which he exerted himself to give support to 
the aristocracy. The popular party, roused by jealousy of 
the influence of the Pythagoraean fraternity, brought several 
charges against it. At Sybaris the democrats compelled 
five hundred nobles to quit the city. They took refuge 
at Croton, and when their surrender was demanded by the 
people of Sybaris, the senate of Croton, by the advice of 
Pythagoras, refused to comply with the request, and prepared 
to repel force by force. A war between the two cities was 
the result, and the Crotoniats, commanded by Milo, a disciple 
of Pythagoras, were victorious. Sybaris was destroyed and 
swept from the face of the earth, the river Crathis being 
turned through its ruins, b. c. 510. The aristocratic party 
at Croton wished to secure for themselves all the advantages 
of this victory, but the commonalty, indignant at such selfish¬ 
ness, rose against them, and more especially against the 
Pythagoraeans. The house in which the latter were assembled 
was set on fire, b. c. 504 ; many of them perished, and the 
rest found safety only in exile. Pythagoras himself is said to 
have died soon after at Metapontum. The fall of the Pytha- 
goraeans strengthened the commonalty not only at Croton, 
but in all the cities of southern Italy; but party feuds con¬ 
tinued to disturb their peace and prosperity for many years 
to come. 


212 


CHAPTER VI. 

THE PERSIAN WARS DOWN TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE 

SUPREMACY OF ATHENS. 

1. Darius, who ascended the throne of Persia in b. c. 
521, came in contact with the Greeks through his conquest 
of Thrace and Macedonia, which he reduced during his great 
expedition against the Scythians ; but even before that event, 
he had had to interfere in the affairs of Samos, which after the 
death of Polycrates was governed by the tyrant Maeandrius. 
Syloson, a brother of Polycrates, claiming the succession for 
himself, sought and obtained the assistance of Persia. An 
army under Otanes came across and succeeded indeed in 
restoring Syloson, but not until nearly the whole population 
was massacred, so that Syloson became the ruler of a deserted 
island. The cause as well as the progress of Darius’ expedition 
against the Scythians, who then occupied the plains between 
the Danube and the Don, is involved in great obscurity; and 
scarcely any fact connected with it is quite certain, except 
that it was conducted by Darius in person, and that it failed 
(about b. c. 507). An enormous army of nearly a million of 
men, it is said, was led by him across the Thracian Bosporus; 
and a fleet of six hundred sail, furnished by his Greek sub¬ 
jects, and commanded by their tyrants, was to sail up the 
Danube to a certain point, where it was to meet the land force. 
The king with his army, without meeting much opposition, 
crossed the Danube, and then ordered the bridge, which had 
been constructed over the river, to be broken down. But 
being reminded that it might be wanted on his return, he 
ordered it to be left standing for sixty days. He then pro¬ 
ceeded against the Scythians. The subsequent part of this 
enterprise is full of impossibilities and inconsistencies; and 


CONQUESTS OF DARIUS IN EUROPE. 2X3 

it is impossible to say more, than that the pursuit of the Per¬ 
sians was in the end changed into a retreat, in which they were 
obliged to abandon their baggage and the sick. When the 
sixty days had elapsed, and the bridge over the Danube was 
to be broken down, Miltiades, the Athenian, tried to persuade 
the Greeks to take it down and thus at once to deliver them¬ 
selves from the yoke of Persia, but, on the advice of Histiaeus, 
tyrant of Miletus, it was allowed to stand. Soon after Darius 
returned, and his army was still large enough to enable him 
to leave eighty thousand men in Europe under Megabazus to 
complete the conquest of Thrace and the Greek cities on the 
Hellespont. Darius, on returning to Asia, rewarded Histiaeus 
for his services with a district on the river Strymon, the 
tvrannis of Histiaeus over Miletus being intrusted to his cousin 
Aristagoras. 

2. Megabazus reduced Perinthos, and having subdued 
all the Thracian tribes which had not yet submitted to his 
master, he made an expedition against the Paeonians, whom 
Darius wished to be transported into Asia. The great body 
of this people dispersed, but some of them were by the king's 
command located in Phrygia. When this matter was accom¬ 
plished, Megabazus demanded of Amyntas, king of Macedonia, 
earth and water, the usual symbols of submission. Macedonia 
at this time was only a small kingdom, of which the ruling 
dynasty was believed to be of Hellenic origin, and descended 
from Heracles; but the people were a mixture of Illyrians 
and Pelasgians, and were always looked upon by the Greeks 
as barbarians. King Amyntas consented to become the 
vassal of Darius, and a banquet was given to the Persian 
envoys ; but their indecent and outrageous conduct roused 
the indignation of Alexander, the king’s son, to such a degree, 
that he caused them all to be murdered in the banquet hall. 
No notice was ever taken of this occurrence either by Mega¬ 
bazus or by Darius. 


514 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


3. In the meantime Histiaeus founded in his Thracian 
principality a town called Myrcinus, and was collecting the 
elements of a power which roused the suspicion of Megabazus. 
The latter communicated his apprehensions to Darius, who at 
once resolved to make Histiaeus harmless, and, pretending 
that he wished to consult him, invited him to come to Sardes, 
where he was then residing. When he arrived, the king 
professed great friendship for him, declaring that he could 
not live without him, and took him to Susa, where he was to 
share his table and counsels. Histiaeus accordingly was kept 
in splendid captivity. The generals of Darius meanwhile 
completed the subjugation of the Greek cities in the north 
of the iEgean, and the islands of Imbros and Lemnos, so 
that about the year b. c.' 505 all the nations from the hanks 
of the Indus to the borders of Thessaly were subject to the 
king of Persia. 

Meantime events were occurring in Naxos which were 
destined to become the source of a conflict between the 
colossal empire of Persia and the little states of Greece. 
The aristocratic party of the island of Naxos, being driven 
into exile by the democrats, solicited the aid of Arista- 
goras, tyrant of Miletus, and he, considering this a favour¬ 
able opportunity for making himself master of the island, 
applied for assistance to Artaphernes, who had been appointed 
satrap of western Asia. Aristagoras represented the conquest 
of Naxos as an easy matter, and promised to defray all the 
expenses. A fleet of two hundred ships, commanded by a 
Persian admiral, was placed at his disposal, and having 
taken on board his own Ionian army, he sailed out. But 
a quarrel soon arose between Aristagoras and the admiral, 
and the latter, determined to thwart the Greek tyrant, 
warned the Naxians of their danger. The Naxians accord¬ 
ingly made most vigorous preparations to defend themselves, 
so that when they were besieged, the enemy was unable 


INSURRECTION OF THE IONIANS. 


215 


to make any progress. His means were soon exhausted, 
and in b. c. 501 he was obliged to return to Miletus without 
having effected anything. As he was unable to make good 
his promise to the Persian satrap, he was a ruined man, and 
saw no help for himself except in revolution. While pondering 
over this, he received a secret message from Histiaeus, who 
likewise saw no means of escaping from his captivity except 
by an insurrection of his countrymen. Aristagoras now 
assembled his most trustworthy friends whom he knew to be 
discontented with the rule of the barbarians, to deliberate 
upon a plan of action. Hecataeus, the historian, dissuaded 
them from it, but war * was resolved upon, though the conspi¬ 
rators did not possess the means of carrying it on. In order 
to win the favour of the popular party, Aristagoras not only 
resigned his own tyrannis, but seized the other tyrants of the 
Asiatic cities who were stationed with the Persian fleet off 
Myus, b. c. 500. 

4. Aristagoras now resolved also to apply to the Greeks 
in Europe to support their kinsmen in their attempt to shake 
off the Persian yoke. He first went to Sparta, with a map 
of the world engraven on a brass plate, to persuade king 
Cleomenes of the feasibility of his scheme. The money which 
he promised as the price for the assistance, was on the 
point of producing the desired effect, when the king, warned 
by his little daughter, declined to have anything to do with 
the matter. Aristagoras then proceeded to Athens, where his 
solicitations on behalf of oppressed Greeks were not made in 
vain, for they already knew that the Persian monarch had it 
in contemplation to re-impose upon them their exiled tyrant 
Hippias. A decree accordingly was readily passed by the 
people of Athens to send a squadron of twenty ships to sup¬ 
port the insurrection of their Ionian kinsmen in Asia. This 
squadron sailed in b.c. 499, accompanied by five galleys from 
Eretria in Euboea. After landing at Ephesus, the Athenians, 


216 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


strengthened by a large number of Ionians, straightway 
marched against Sardes. The Persian satrap took refuge in 
the strong citadel, and the lower city was plundered and set 
on fire. Satisfied with this achievement, and unable to take 
the citadel, the Greeks returned to Ephesus. But being 
pursued by the whole force which the Persian satrap had 
been able to muster, they were overtaken and beaten in a 
battle near Ephesus. The Ionians then dispersed, and the 
Athenians and Eretrians returned home. 

5. When Darius was informed of these things, his rage 
knew no bounds ' r but he was more indignant at the obscure 
strangers who had dared to attack his dominions than at the 
Ionians themselves, and he charged one of his attendants daily 
to remind him of the. Athenians. His first care, however, 
was to quell the insurrection of the Ionians, which was 
spreading farther and farther. The cunning Histiaeus ob¬ 
tained leave to go to Ionia, under the promise that he would 
soon put down the rebels. The Ionians in the meantime 
induced Byzantium and the other Greek cities in the north 
to assert their independence, and Caria and the island oi 
Cyprus followed their example. The Persian generals were 
no less active in crushing the revolt. The cities on the 
Propontis and in Caria were reduced by Daurises, and Cyprus 
was overpowered by a Phoenician fleet. When this was 
accomplished, the Persians directed all their forces against 
the Ionian and iEolian cities. When Clazomenae and Cyme 
had fallen, Aristagoras, having lost all hope of success, w T ent 
to Myrcinus in Thrace, where soon after his reckless career 
was cut short while he was besieging a Thracian town with 
a band of Ionians. Meanwhile Histiaeus arrived at Sardes, 
and it being hinted to him by the satrap Artaphernes, that 
he had had a hand in the revolt, he thought it advisable to 
make his escape to Chios. He would gladly have put him¬ 
self at the head of the Greeks, but he was generally suspected 


REDUCTION OF THE ASIATIC GREEKS. 


217 


and distrusted. He found himself a homeless adventurer, 
and withdrew to Lesbos, where he was more successful; he 
collected a small fleet, with which he sailed to Byzantium, 
and seized all the merchant-vessels of the cities which refused 
to recognise him as the sovereign of Ionia. 

6. The insurrection of Ionia was in the meantime draw¬ 
ing to a crisis. Every effort was made against Miletus. A 
large fleet was brought together, consisting of six hundred 
ships. The fleet of the Ionians, amounting to three hundred 
and fifty-three triremes, was stationed near the little island of 
Lade, for the confederates had resolved to leave Miletus to 
defend itself. The Persians, notwithstanding their superiority 
in numbers, did not venture to attack the Ionians at sea, and 
had recourse to some unsuccessful stratagems. The Ionians, 
however, were careless, and this irritated some of those who 
saw the necessity of maintaining better discipline, to such a 
degree, that they made secret overtures to the enemy. When, 
therefore, the Persians at last made the attack, the Samians 
first withdrew from the fight, and their example was followed 
by others. Some of the Greeks, however, fought to the last, 
but their defeat was complete. This happened in b. c. 494, and 
the disaster was soon followed by the fall of Miletus; in the fol¬ 
lowing year the other Ionian cities, and those in the north of the 
iEgean, likewise succumbed, and were treated with the utmost 
rigour. The terror which preceded the Persians everywhere 
induced the inhabitants of Byzantium and Chalcedon to quit 
their homes and found a new one at Mesembria, on the coast 
of the Euxine. Miltiades, who had been living on his large 
estates in the Thracian Chersonesus ever since the return of 
Darius from Scythia, also felt unsafe, and returned to Athens. 

7. After the reduction of the Greek cities, they were 
made to feel the Persian yoke much more severely than 
before, and all traces of independence were effaced. Order 
and peace were restored at the expense of libertybut still 


218 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the cities in that happy climate soon revived and recovered 
from their calamities. Mardonius, the king’s son-in-law, 
on being sent to succeed Artaphernes, allayed the discontent 
of the Greeks by deposing the tyrants who had been set up 
by his predecessor, and by restoring the democratic form of 
government. But at the same time he was accompanied by 
a large armament to chastise Athens and Eretria for their 
presumption, and to spread the terror of the king’s name in 
Europe. A large fleet was to sweep the iEgean, while Mar¬ 
donius himself led an army by land through Thrace into 
Greece. The fleet was overtaken by a violent storm off 
mount Athos, and no less than three hundred ships and 
twenty thousand men are said to have been lost on that 
occasion. The land army was not much more fortunate, for 
one night the camp was attacked by a Thracian tribe, and 
the loss sustained was so great that Mardonius thought it 
prudent to return to Asia, b. c. 492. 

8. But the determination of Darius was not shaken by 
these disasters; he renewed his preparations, and sent heralds 
to the principal cities of Greece to demand the customary 
signs of submission. Both at Athens and at Sparta these 
envoys were put to death, but many other cities, and 
AEgina with the other islands, complied with the demand 
of the barbarians. The Athenians, still hostile to the 
iEginetans, sent ambassadors to Sparta to charge them 
with high treason against the cause of Greece. Cleomenes, 
king of Sparta, advanced with a force against the iEginetans, 
who, being frightened, delivered up to him ten of their 
leading men, who were sent as hostages to Athens. The 
iEginetans retaliated, and a succession of acts of hostility 
continued to be committed from time to time by both states, 
while the Persians were making their preparations for invading 
Europe. In b. c. 490 a fleet of six hundred galleys with 
transport? was assembled in Cilicia under the command of 


BATTLE OF MARATHON. 


219 


Datis and Artaphernes, ready to take the army on board. 
The fleet crossed the iEgean, subdued Naxos and the othe* 
Cyclades, and then sailed towards Euboea, taking in reinforce¬ 
ments from the islands during its progress. Eretria sent to 
Athens for succour against the impending danger, and the 
four thousand Athenians settled in Euboea were charged to 
defend that city; but as the Eretrians themselves were not 
agreed as to how to act, the Athenians returned to Attica. 
After the fall of Carystus, which had refused to admit the 
enemy, Eretria was besieged. Some traitors in the city opened 
the gates to the Persians, who plundered the temples, and 
then set fire to the place. The inhabitants were made 
prisoners, and afterwards transported to Asia as slaves. After 
this the whole fleet sailed towards the coast of Attica. 

9. Guided by the exiled tyrant Hippias, who had urged 
the Persians to this expedition against his own country, the 
army landed on the plain of Marathon, which is about five 
miles in length, and two in breadth. No sooner did the 
Athenians hear of the enemy’s arrival, than they marched out 
to meet them, all serviceable citizens, and even slaves will¬ 
ing to earn their liberty, being armed. The Plataeans, 
the brothers and allies of the Athenians, obeyed the sum¬ 
mons of Athens without delay. At the same time a mes¬ 
senger was despatched to Sparta in all haste, to give 
information of the danger, and request assistance. But 
the Spartans, not being themselves exposed to immediate 
peril, and having moreover some religious scruples as to 
setting out about the time of the new moon, dismissed the 
messenger with promises of future succour. The Athenians, 
however, undismayed by this want of ready sympathy on the 
part of the leading state of Greece, resolved to attack the 
invaders. They were commanded, as usual, by ten generals, 
one of whom was Miltiades, who had recently returned from 
Chersonesus, but Callimachus as polemarch was at their head. 


220 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


The generals were divided in their opinions as to whether 
battle should be given to the Persians at once, or whether 
they should wait for the arrival of the Lacedaemonians. 
Miltiades, seeing the danger of delay, and fearing treachery, 
as Hippias had still some friends in the city, urged the 
necessity of attacking the enemy at once, and his colleagues 
gave way to his arguments. Accordingly, when the command 
came round to Miltiades, he drew up the little army in order 
of battle on a rising ground. At the signal of attack, they 
rushed on the enemy, who received them with scorn and con¬ 
tempt, as men hurrying to certain destruction. But before 
they were aware of it, the Persians found themselves engaged 
in close combat, and, owing to the skilful management of 
Miltiades, they were completely defeated. In the greatest 
confusion and disorder the barbarians rushed to their ships, 
but many perished in the marshes on the coast, and in 
their attempts to embark. The Persian fleet with the sur¬ 
vivors then steered towards Sunion, to attack Attica on the 
opposite side, but they were prevented by the prompt move¬ 
ments of the Athenians, who arrived on the western coast 
before the Persians, and the latter, seeing that they had mis¬ 
calculated, returned to Asia, without making any further 
attempts against the Greeks. So ended the great day of 
Marathon, in August b. c. 490. 

10. The battle of Marathon was always looked upon by 
the Athenians as their most glorious achievement, and well 
might they be proud of it; for a small band of patriots had 
routed and defeated a countless host of barbarians, and 
thereby secured the independence of Greece and Europe. 
But what they had actually accomplished, was so much mag¬ 
nified in their heated imaginations, that in the subsequent 
reports about it, it became something altogether incredible 
and impossible. Athens, however, to whom the glory of this 
victory belonged almost exclusively, now for the first time 


MILTIADES. 


221 


became aware of her own strength. The Persian forces are 
said to have amounted to six hundred thousand men, while 
those of the Athenians and Plataeans are estimated at ten 
thousand; upwards of six thousand of the enemy lay on the 
field of battle, while the Athenians had lost only one hundred 
and ninety two, but among them was Callimachus, the pole- 
march. The place where this glorious battle was fought is 
still marked by a tumulus, under which the Athenians are 
said to have been buried. The absence of the Spartans on 
the day of the battle was an event of incalculable moment. 
They arrived after the battle was over with a force of only 
two thousand men, and having inspected the field strewed 
with the dead, they returned home, apparently feeling them¬ 
selves that they had not done their duty towards their 
country. 

11. Very soon after the battle of Marathon, Miltiades, 
somewhat elated by his success, requested a fleet of seventy 
sail, promising his fellow-citizens to increase their dominions. 
With this force, which was readily granted, he first sailed to 
Paros, where he had a private enemy. But the Parians 
repelled his attacks, and having received a wound in his 
knee, he returned to Athens without having accomplished 
anything. Xanthippus, the father of Pericles, brought an 
action against him for having led the people into useless ex¬ 
penses, and as public feeling was against him, he was sentenced 
to pay a fine of fifty talents. Being unable to raise this sum 
at once, he was thrown into prison, and soon after died of his 
wound. This verdict against their great commander has 
brought much censure upon the Athenians, but there are 
indications which seem to show that he had acted with dis¬ 
regard or even contempt of the laws of his country; and if 
so, the sentence pronounced against him, though severe, was 
not unjust. 

12. The battle of Marathon ought to have taught the Per- 


222 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


sians a lesson which they stood much in need of; but instead 
of this, their anger was doubly inflamed, and thinking that his 
forces had been insufficient, Darius resolved to make the 
Athenians feel the whole weight of his arm. For three years 
preparations were made throughout his empire, and everything 
was furnished in abundance ; but in the fourth an insurrection 
broke out in Egypt, and before he had made the necessary 
arrangements for its suppression, he died, b. c. 486. He was 
succeeded by Xerxes (b. c. 485-465), the favourite son of his 
favourite wife, who was urged by his friends and advisers to 
renew the enterprise, which, he was told, had failed only 
through mischance, and not through the inability of the 
Persians. Mardonius was foremost among these advisers, and 
he was eagerly supported by treacherous Greeks, who had gone 
to Susa for the purpose of accomplishing their selfish ends. A 
fresh invasion of Greece accordingly was resolved upon; but 
before doing so, Xerxes had to reduce Egypt, which was 
effected in the second year of his reign. After this, the 
whole of Asia was ransacked for a period of four years, and all 
available resources of his empire were collected to be turned 
against Greece. To facilitate the progress of the army and 
fleet, a bridge of boats was thrown across the Hellespont, and 
a canal dug through the low isthmus which connects mount 
Athos with the mainland, in order to avoid the dangerous 
doubling of that promontory, where the fleet of Mardonius had 
been destroyed. 

13. When all this was completed, Xerxes in the spring 
of b. c. 480 set out from Sardes with an army consisting of 
nations of all colours, costumes, arms, and languages. When 
they had crossed the Hellespont at Abydos, they proceeded 
from Sestos up the Chersonesus towards Doriscos, where the 
whole motley host was reviewed ; it is said to have consisted of 
one million seven hundred thousand foot and eighty thousand 
horse. The fleet, which had arrived off the coast of the same 


THEMISTOCLES AND ARISTIDES. 


223 


place, numbered one thousand two hundred and seven triremes 
and three thousand smaller vessels. From Doriscos the army, 
accompanied by the fleet, marched along the coast through 
Thrace and Macedonia towards the south. 

The Greeks had at first been slow in making preparations 
for the common danger, but when it became known what 
Xerxes was doing, the leading states and those breathing the 
same spirit of independence began to feel that their safety 
depended upon union. But unanimity was a thing difficult 
to attain in Greece. The people of Thessaly were obliged 
by the ruling family of the Aleuadae to yield when the Persians 
demanded of them earth and water, and their example was 
followed by all the tribes between them and mount (Eta. The 
Phocians refused compliance with the demand, but the Dorians 
and Boeotians yielded ; Thespiae and Plataeae alone remained 
faithful to the cause of Greece. Selfishness and pusillanimity 
thus prevented a coalition among the northern Greeks. The 
Peloponnesians, so far as the influence of Sparta reached, were 
unanimous, but Argos and Achaia, from enmity towards Sparta, 
resolved to remain neutral. Athens and Sparta, however, 
exerted all their power to meet the impending danger. The 
leading man at Athens, and the soul of all her counsels, was 
Themistocles, whose object was to make Athens great and 
powerful, that he himself might move and command in a large 
sphere. He was most distinguished for extraordinary quick¬ 
ness of perception as to what was the real state of affairs at 
any given time, and what was required therein to ensure a 
definite end. But by his side stood Aristides, a man some¬ 
what older than he, and who had already reached the height 
of popularity by his extraordinary honesty and disinterested¬ 
ness, which procured him the honourable surname of the 
Just. He, like Themistocles, to whom he was inferior in 
abilities, had the welfare of his country at heart, but simply 
and singly, not as a means, but as an end. Men like these 


224 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


could not but come into frequent collision, and by the con¬ 
trivance of Themistocles Aristides was sent by ostracism into 
honourable exile, b. c. 483. By the removal of his ^ival, 
Themistocles was left in the undivided possession of the 
popular favour. He saw the necessity for Athens to enlarge 
her naval force, and prevailed upon the people to devote the 
profits they had hitherto derived from the silver mines of 
Laurion to the increase of their navy. The Athenians thus 
raised their.fleet to the number of two hundred ships, and 
became a maritime people, for which nature had in fact 
destined them by the situation of their city. 

14. Even before Xerxes had left Asia, the Greek states 
favourable to the cause of independence had held a congress 
on the isthmus of Corinth, with the view of bringing about a 
union; but they met with little or no success. Envoys 
were even sent to Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse, who promised 
his support, if the Greeks would intrust to him the command 
of all their forces. This embassy had probably been sent, 
because it was known that Xerxes had instigated the Car¬ 
thaginians, through his Phoenician subjects, to attack the 
Greek cities in Sicily. The proposal of Gelo, however, was 
rejected. Meanwhile Themistocles did all he could, not 
only to allay animosity and silence disputes among the Greeks, 
but also to brace the energy of his fellow-citizens. The 
enthusiasm thus infused into the friends of liberty is clear 
from the fact that the Greeks assembled at Corinth, bound 
themselves by an oath to consecrate to the god at Delphi a 
tenth of the substance of every Greek people, which had sur¬ 
rendered to the Persians without being compelled by necessity. 
It was also resolved at the congress that the progress of the 
Persians should be opposed at the pass of Thermopylae, 
whither a small body of Peloponnesians was sent at once; 
and that the fleet should guard the northern entrance of the 
Euboean channel.. The whole fleet consisted of two hundred 


BATTLE OF AKTEMISIUM. 


225 


and seventy-one triremes, of which Athens furnished by far 
the greater part. The Spartan Eurybiades had the com¬ 
mand of the fleet. 

15. When the Persian armada in its course southward came 
near cape Sepias, it was overtaken by a storm, which burst 
upon it with irresistible fury, and lasted for three days and 
three nights. The coast for many miles was covered with 
WTecks and corpses ; four hundred ships and innumerable lives 
were lost, and the remainder of the fleet took shelter in the 
gulf of Pagasae. The Greeks, rejoiced at this disaster of the 
enemy, returned to their station at Artemisium, which during 
the first alarm they had abandoned, and at once captured 
fifteen of the enemy’s ships, which had been detained. But 
when it became known that the loss of the Persians, great 
as it was, was scarcely felt by them, the Greeks again began to 
despond, and Themistocles had great difficulty in keeping the 
fleet together. At length, however, when the Persians had 
sustained another loss from a storm, the Greeks took courage 
and boldly sailed out to attack the enemy. A small squadron 
of Cilician vessels was taken and destroyed. This led to a 
general engagement, in which the unwieldy armament of the 
Persians was thrown into confusion and sustained great loss. 
But one half of the ships of the Greeks were likewise disabled, 
and they now resolved to retreat, partly on this account, and 
partly on account of tidings which had just reached them 
from Thermopylae. 

16. The small band of Peloponnesians which had been 
sent to bar the progress of the Persians in the pass of Ther¬ 
mopylae was commanded by the Spartan king Leonidas. It 
consisted of three hundred Spartans, five hundred Tegeatans, 
and about two thousand from other Peloponnesian cities ; and 
these had been joined by one thousand Phocians and seven 
hundred Thespians. It was believed that this force was 
sufficient to prevent the enemy from making his way through 

Q 


228 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the pass—it being unknown that there was a path across the 
mountain by which the pass could be evaded. But when its 
existence was discovered, Leonidas sent the Phocians to occupy 
the heights. When the Greeks became aware of the countless 
hosts by which their small force was to be assailed, Leonidas 
could scarcely keep his men together, and he sent envoys to 
the south to ask for speedy reinforcements. Xerxes, who had 
hoped to scare them by his mere presence, was astonished 
when he heard that they were awaiting his attack in all 
composure. After a few days he ordered his men to bring 
the Greeks captive before him; but attack after attack 
proved fruitless, and the slaughter on the side of the bar¬ 
barians was great. Xerxes began to despair of success, when 
the path across the mountain was betrayed to him by a base 
Greek of the name of Ephialtes. A detachment of the king’s 
troops accordingly followed the infamous traitor up the moun¬ 
tain. The Phocians, unable to drive the enemy back, retreated, 
and the barbarians, unconcerned about them, pursued their 
course. When the Greeks in the pass heard what had 
happened, Leonidas declared for himself and his Spartans the 
determination to defend his post to the last, but allowed those 
of his allies who wished to save themselves to withdraw. All 
availed themselves of this permission except the Thespians 
and four hundred Thebans. When the detachment guided by 
Ephialtes arrived at the southern entrance of the pass, the 
Spartans were at once attacked on both sides. Leonidas, 
knowing his hopeless condition, sallied forth, determined to 
sell his life and those of his countrymen as dearly as possible. 
Four times the Persians were driven back, until at length the 
Spartans being surrounded on a hillock, were all slain. 
Leonidas had fallen at an early part of the day; all were 
subsequently buried on the spot where they had fallen, and 
an inscription on their tomb bade the passenger go to Sparta 
and tell their countrymen that they had fallen in obedience 


BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE. 


227 


to the laws of their country. The battle of Thermopylae was 
fought in the summer of b. c. 480, and the Persians are said 
to have lost there no less than twenty thousand men. 

17. Xerxes having now gained the entrance into Greece, 
advanced through Doris against Phocis, whose inhabitants 
took refuge in the mountains. The Persians poured undis¬ 
tinguishing ruin upon everything that came in their way. 
The main body of their army proceeded through Boeotia 
against Attica, while a small detachment was sent to strip 
the temple of Delphi of its treasures. The Delphians had 
left their city to the protection of Apollo, who in the hour of 
danger did not forsake it. For when the barbarians advanced, 
a fearful thunderstorm is said to have burst upon them, and 
huge rocks falling from the precipices of Parnassus to have 
crushed many; and the Persians, terror-stricken, retraced 
their steps, and were pursued by the Delphians with unre¬ 
sisted slaughter. The Athenians had hoped that the Pelo¬ 
ponnesians would throw an army into Boeotia for the protec¬ 
tion of Attica, but it soon became evident that they were bent 
upon defending only the entrance to Peloponnesus, and leav¬ 
ing Attica to its fate. The Athenians asked the Delphic god 
for advice, and the priestess, probably at the suggestion of 
Themistocles, told them that they must defend themselves 
behind their wooden walls. Themistocles, of course, had no 
difficulty in explaining the mysterious import of the oracle, 
and convinced them that they must rely for safety upon their 
navy. This being approved of, the Athenians begged their 
allies to sail with them from Artemisium to Sal amis, there to 
provide for the safety of their wives and children, and deli¬ 
berate upon their mode of action. 

18. Meanwhile the Persians advanced through Boeotia 
towards Athens, Thespiae and Plataeae being reduced to 
ashes, while all the other Boeotian towns admitted Persian 
garrisons. The Athenians, by the advice of Themistocles, 


HISTORY OF GREEGE. 


223 

abandoned their city to the protection of its tutelary divinity, 
and transported their families and movable property to Sala- 
mis, iEgina, and Troezen, where they were received with 
great kindness. A few men only remained in the Acropolis. 
The Greek fleet, assembled at Salamis with its recent rein¬ 
forcements, amounted to three hundred and eighty ships. In 
their council of war the Greeks were almost unanimous that the 
fleet should quit Salamis, and move nearer the isthmus, where 
it might co-operate with the Peloponnesian army. While these 
consultations were going on, it was announced that Xerxes had 
overrun Attica, and that he was spreading desolation over the 
whole country. The lower city was taken and destroyed, 
and the small band in the Acropolis was overpowered by 
surprise. The temples were then plundered, and the whole 
Acropolis set on fire. These terrible occurrences greatly 
alarmed the commanders of the Greek fleet, and there seemed 
little prospect of their remaining united at Salamis ; but The- 

mistocles was now more than ever convinced that the onlv 

•» 

hope of safety consisted in their receiving the hostile fleet in 
the straits of Salamis. As his arguments had no effect, he 
had recourse to threats, declaring that if the allies persisted 
in their design, the Athenians would sail away with their 
families and all their property, and seek a new home in Italy. 
These words produced the desired effect. 

19. But as there was still danger lest the Peloponnesians 
should change their minds, Themistocles, assuming the mask 
of a traitor to his country, sent a trusty slave to the Persian 
admiral with the message that the Greeks were on the point 
of fleeing and dispersing, and that, if he attacked them at 
once, this would ensure a complete and easy victory, whereas, 
if he allowed them to disperse, he would have to fight against 
them one by one. This advice, agreeing as it did with the 
wishes of the Persians themselves, was followed at once. In 
the night the Persian fleet blocked up the narrow channels 


BATTLE OF SALAMIS. 


229 


bv which Salamis is separated from Attica and Megara. 
When the morning dawned, the whole sea was seen covered 
with the enemy’s ships, and the Attic coast lined with troops, 
while Xerxes himself intended to view the great naval 
engagement from a lofty throne erected on a height. As 
soon as the gigantic fleet had entered the narrow channels, 
and was pent up in such a manner that movements and 
evolutions were utterly impossible, the Greeks attacked 
them. The damage done by the Persian ships to one 
another during the confusion which soon ensued was almost 
as great as that inflicted by the valiant Greeks with their 
nimble triremes. The event of the battle was in reality 
decided at the first onset; but the fight continued all day, 
until towards evening the remainder of the hostile fleet with¬ 
drew towards Phaleron, whither the Greeks did not pursue 
them. This glorious victory was completed by Aristides, 
who though in exile had joined the fleet of his country in the 
hour of danger. The barbarians are said to have lost on 
that day five hundred ships, and the Greeks only forty. 
Xerxes, though he still had a sufficient force to renew the 
contest, felt that such another defeat would expose him to 
the greatest danger, and at once resolved to retreat. In this 
resolution he was confirmed by Mardonius, who told him that 
the land army was still unconquered, and asked for three 
hundred thousand men, with whom he promised to subjugate 
the whole of Greece. Xerxes, satisfied with the proposal, 
made preparations for his return across the Hellespont. 

20. As the hostile fleet quitted the Saronic gulf, and 
sailed northward, many of the Greeks burned with the desire 
of pursuing the enemy; but Eurybiades thought this dangerous, 
and even Themistocles gave way to his remonstrances. As the 
enemy’s fleet had already advanced as far as the Cyclades, the 
Greeks contented themselves with chastising those islanders 
who had supported the Persians. It is even said that Themisto- 


230 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


cles hurried the king’s flight, by sending a messenger to inform 
him that the Greeks meditated breaking down the bridge which 
had been constructed across the Hellespont; and that Xerxes, 
terrified by this information, made with all possible speed for 
the Hellespont. Mardonius accompanied his master as far as 
Thessaly, where he himself intended to take up his winter 
quarters. The sufferings which the king’s army had to 
endure during this retreat were terrible, and when he arrived 
at Sestos, he found the bridge destroyed by the waves, but 
the fleet was in readiness to carry him and the wreck of his 
army across to Abydos. Several of the Greek towns in the 
north of the iEgean now threw off the Persian yoke, though 
the king’s generals made every effort to prevent it. The- 
mistocles continued his proceedings among the Cyclades, 
where he tarnished his fame by accepting large bribes, with 
which some of the islanders purchased their impunity. But 
the praise of his wisdom and prudence, nevertheless, now 
resounded through all Greece, and even the Spartans bestowed 
on him the same honours as upon their own admiral Eury- 
biades. 

At the same time when the battle of Sal amis was fought, 
the Sicilian Greeks gained a most memorable victory over 
the Carthaginians at Himera, where they fought against 
an army of three hundred thousand men, commanded by 
Hamilcar. 

21. Shortly after the battle of Salamis the Athenians 
returned to Attica to rebuild their homes and cultivate 
their fields, and in the following spring they made active 
preparations, for they knew that Mardonius was in Thessaly, 
and a Persian fleet of three hundred sail was still in the 
iEgean to watch the movements of the Ionians, whom the 
Persians could not trust. Mardonius, who had by this time 
become convinced of his difficulties, formed the plan of 
detaching Athens from the interest of the other Greeks, and 


Battle of plataeae. 231 

engaged Alexander of Macedonia to negotiate a peace and 
alliance between Athens and Persia. But the manly answer 
of the Athenians, that, so long as the sun held on its course, 
Athens would never become the ally of Persia, at once 
destroyed the hopes of Mardonius and the fears of the other 
Greeks. Mardonius now set out without delay to make him¬ 
self master of Athens, and the treacherous Thessalians and 
Boeotians displayed great zeal in the service of the barbarians. 
When he arrived at Athens, he found nothing but the 
deserted walls, for the inhabitants seeing that no aid could 
be expected from the Peloponnesians, notwithstanding their 
many promises, had withdrawn with their families to Salamis, 
b. c. 479. Mardonius now renewed his proposals of peace, 
but with no better success than before. The Spartans were 
in the meantime only busied about protecting themselves in 
their peninsula, by fortifying the isthmus of Corinth. Com¬ 
plaints and even threats were resorted to by the Athenians, 
Megarians, and Plataeans, when at length the ephors ordered 
Pausanias, the guardian of the young king Pleistarchus, to 
lead an army of five thousand Spartans, each attended by 
seven Helots, into Boeotia. Mardonius, not being inclined to 
fight a battle in Attica, threw himself into Boeotia, where he 
hoped to be supported by the Thebans and other Boeotians ; 
but before leaving Attica he destroyed everything which had 
been left untouched during the previous invasion. He pitched 
his camp in Boeotia, between Erythrae and the river Asopus, 
expecting that Pausanias would give him battle there. 

22. Pausanias on his march northwards was strengthened 
by reinforcements from the Peloponnesians, and an army of the 
Athenians commanded by Aristides. The whole force, amount¬ 
ing, it is said, to one hundred and ten thousand men, encamped 
near Erythrae, at the foot of mount Cythaeron. In a first 
engagement the Greeks were successful against the cavalry 
of the Persians, but for the sake of greater safety Pausanias 


232 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


descended into the territory of Plataeae, which still lay in 
ruins. Mardonius advanced against him with all his forces, 
but for ten days the armies faced each other without coming 
to any engagement, the signs in the sacrifices being unfavour¬ 
able, when at length Mardonius resolved to wait no longer. 
In the night before the battle, Alexander of Macedonia rode 
up to the Athenians, informed them of the determination of 
the enemy, and exhorted them to keep their ground. Pausa- 
nias made his arrangements accordingly. Mardonius, mistak¬ 
ing the enemy’s movements for signs of fear, attacked them 
with great vehemence, and the Greeks were thrown into an 
unfavourable position. In the following night, therefore, they 
moved off towards a more convenient place, close to Plataeae. 
Mardonius again imagining that his opponents had taken to 
flight, attacked them without delay. He and his Persians 
fought bravely; but he was mortally wounded, and his fall 
decided the issue of the battle. The Persians and all the 
other barbarians gave way at once. Artabazus, who com¬ 
manded forty thousand men, now came up to reinforce the 
Persian army, but finding that it was too late, he returned 
through Phocis hoping to reach the Hellespont. The Greek 
auxiliaries of the Persians immediately dispersed, the Thebans 
alone continuing the fight against the Athenians, while the 
survivors of the barbarians shut themselves up within their 
camp. The Athenians were the first to break into it, and the 
Asiatics, having lost all hope of defending themselves success¬ 
fully, allowed themselves to be slaughtered without a struggle, 
like sheep in a fold. Out of the whole multitude of barbarians 
only three thousand are said to have escaped from the carnage. 
The booty and the treasures found in the camp were immense, 
and Pausanias ordered the Helots to collect them, that both 
gods and men might receive their due share. A tenth part 
was dedicated in the form of tripods and statues to Apollo, 
Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena; and a magnificent present was 


BATTLE OF MYCALE. 


233 


selected for Pausanias, to whom the glory of the victory of 
Plataeae was justly ascribed. 

23. Artabazus, after the loss of many men from famine 
and through the attacks of the Thracians, reached Asia in 
safety; and Alexander of Macedonia was rewarded for his 
services with the Athenian franchise. Greece was now com¬ 
pletely and finally delivered from the Persian invaders. The 
Greeks before quitting Boeotia, endeavoured, under the direc¬ 
tion of Aristides, to provide for the future unity among their 
countrymen against foreign aggression, and resolved upon 
carrying .out the threat against those Greeks who had sup¬ 
ported the Persians. The Thebans had forfeited every claim 
to leniency, but it was nevertheless agreed to punish only the 
guilty few and not the wdiole population. The army accord¬ 
ingly appeared before the gates of Thebes, demanding the 
surrender of the traitors to their country. As the demand 
was refused, the city was blockaded for twenty days, after 
which the offenders themselves consented to be delivered up. 
Most of them were carried off by Pausanias, and put to death 
by him without any trial. 

24. On the same day on which the Persians were defeated 
at Plataeae, they also suffered a severe blow on the coast of 
Asia. The Greek fleet, commanded by the Spartan king 
Leotychides, was stationed at Delos watching the move¬ 
ments of the enemy, when envoys from Samos solicited its 
aid against their own tyrant, who was a zealous supporter 
of Persia. Leotychides accordingly sailed to Samos. The 
Persian fleet, instead of protecting the tyrant, withdrew 
towards the mainland to seek the assistance of the land army 
of sixty thousand men, which w’as stationed near mount 
Mycale to keep Ionia in subjection. The Persian ships accord¬ 
ingly were drawn up on the beach, and protected as well as 
they could be in the hurry. The Greeks, seeing the fear of 
their enemies, resolved to cross over from Samos, give them 


234 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


battle, and issue a proclamation to the Ionians, calling upon 
them to remember their liberty. At the same time a rumour 
reached the Greeks of a victory gained by their countrymen 
in Boeotia over Mardonius, and this report at once roused their 
courage and confidence. The Persians were drawn up at the 
foot of mount Mycale. The Athenians and Spartans made 
the attack and drove the enemy into the enclosure surround¬ 
ing their ships; but when the barbarians found that the pur¬ 
suers had entered the enclosure with them, they betook 
themselves to the mountain passes, and the Persians them¬ 
selves, after maintaining the contest for a while, were com¬ 
pletely routed. The Samians and the other Ionians joined 
the Greeks as soon as they were able, and the carnage among 
the Asiatics was fearful. A few only escaped to Sardes, 
where Xerxes was still watching the course of events, and 
the Greeks, after collecting the booty and burning the ships 
of the enemy, returned to Samos. 

25. As Europe and the islands of the iEgean were now 
safe, it only remained to be decided in what way the Ionians 
should be permanently protected against their oppressors; it 
was resolved to return to Europe, and to leave the Ionians to 
make the best terms they could with Persia for themselves. 
Xanthippus, the father of Pericles, however, wished to 
recover the principality of Miltiades in Chersonesus, and as 
the Spartans had no interest in this matter, it was left to 
the Athenians alone, while Leotychides and the Pelopon¬ 
nesians sailed home. Xanthippus and the Athenians laid siege 
to Sestos, w T here many Persians of rank had sought refuge. 
The fortress was very strong, but Xanthippus would not give 
up the enterprise, and blockaded the place during the winter, 
until in the spring of b.c. 478 famine induced the Persians 
to try to make their escape by night. Many of them, how¬ 
ever, were overtaken and put to death, and the Greek inha- 


RESTORATION OF ATHENS. 


235 


bitants of Sestos opened their gates to the Athenians. After 
this Xanthippus and his fleet also sailed home. 

26. On their arrival, the Athenians found their country a 
wasted land, and their city a heap of ruins. The restoration 
of the private dwellings was left to their owners, who rebuilt 
them as well as they could under the circumstances, and with¬ 
out any system or plan ; the rebuilding of the temples was left 
for another season, the thoughts of Themistocles and Aristides 
being engaged in providing for the immediate security and 
permanent strength of the city. The walls of Athens were 
restored and extended ; but this was viewed by her allies with 
fear and jealousy, for they seem to have forgotten what she 
had suffered and what she had done for their common liberty. 
Envoys, accordingly, were sent from Sparta, who, under the 
disguise of friendship, advised them not to fortify their city, 
as it would only strengthen any invading enemy, adding 
that Peloponnesus would always be a sufficient refuge for all 
Greeks. Themistocles, who saw through their selfish and 
jealous scheme, deceived the Spartans, and carried on the 
work of fortification with increased activity; and when at 
length the city was sufficiently strong, he having him¬ 
self gone to Sparta, bade them in future treat the Athe¬ 
nians as reasonable men, who knew what was due to their 
own safety as well as to Greece. The Spartans, with their 
usual skill, disguised their vexation, and the fortifications 
of Athens were quietly completed. When this was done, 
Themistocles, who thoroughly understood the vocation of 
Athens, proposed to fortify its three harbours of Phaleron, 
Munychia, and Piraeus, by a double range of walls, for 
hitherto Athens had used only Phaleron as its port. At the 
same time, a plan was formed of making Piraeus a port 
town ; the success was complete, and Piraeus became the seat 
of numerous merchants and tradesmen of every description, 


236 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


especially aliens who settled there under the protection of 
Athens. 

27. Athens was now strong and conscious of her position 
and power. In the spring of b. c. 477, the allied fleet, com¬ 
manded by Pausanias, again put to sea, the contingent of the 
Athenians being under the command of Aristides and Cimon, 
the son of Miltiades. They first sailed to Cyprus, which they 
wrested from the hands of the Persians; then, having pro¬ 
ceeded to the north, they laid siege to Byzantium, which was 
still occupied by the Persians, but was soon taken. The 
mind of Pausanias seems to have become perverted by the 
victories he had gained, for he now adopted the manners of 
the barbarians, and began to treat his allies with a haughti¬ 
ness as if they were his subjects ; his ambition was unbounded, 
and he was blind to the dangers to which he exposed 
himself. In this state of mind he formed the scheme of 
betraying Greece into the hands of the Persians, in the hope 
that he might be made the ruler of his country, as a vassal 
of the great king. He accordingly made overtures to this 
effect to Xerxes, asking for his reward the hand of the king’s 
daughter. Xerxes eagerly caught at the proposal, and Pau¬ 
sanias, on discovering this, no longer dissembled his inten¬ 
tions, but at once assumed the pomp and state of a Persian 
satrap. The Ionians soon found that the treatment they 
experienced from him was no better than from the Persians. 
The conduct of the Athenian generals, on the other hand, 
was all the more winning, from its contrast to that of the 
Spartans; and hence the allies began to consider how much 
happier they would be under the command of Aristides 
and Cimon. The wish gradually ripened into a resolution, 
and all the allies, with the exception of those from Pelo¬ 
ponnesus and iEgina, offered to Athens the supremacy in 
all their common affairs. Aristides, to whose wise conduct 
his country owed her present proud position, now undertook 


SUPREMACY OF ATHENS. 


237 


the task of regulating the laws of the confederacy, and of its 
relation to Athens as its head. The great object was to pro¬ 
tect the Greeks against the barbarians, and to weaken and 
humble the latter as much as possible. All were to contri¬ 
bute towards this common end, and Athens, as the organ of 
the public will, was to collect and direct their forces. Each 
separate state, however, was to remain perfectly independent 
in its own affairs. A common fund was established from 
annual contributions, Delos was chosen as the treasury of 
the confederates, and in its temple of Apollo the deputies of 
the several states were to hold their meetings. 

28. Through the folly and treachery of one man, Sparta 
had lost a position which it had maintained for centuries 
Pausanias was recalled, but it was too late, and the new 
generals who were sent out had to be content with a subor¬ 
dinate rank. Sparta, unable to brook this, withdrew from 
the scene of action, leaving her rival triumphant. She still 
remained, however, the head of her Peloponnesian allies, who 
now rallied all the more closely around her, so that henceforth 
Greece is divided between two great confederacies. The 
supremacy of Athens lasted until the end of the Peloponnesian 
war, b. c. 404. But before proceeding to describe the glori¬ 
ous career upon which she now entered so honourably, we 
shall briefly notice the later occurrences in the lives of the 
men who had brought about this great change. 

29. Aristides, whose last and noblest work was the regu¬ 
lation of the Athenian confederacy, was also the author of 
some important reforms in the political constitution of his 
native country, for he is said to have opened the archonship 
and the council of the Areopagus to all Athenian citizens, 
irrespective of any property qualification. Such a change 
had become necessary by the course of events. Aristides 
died in the full enjoyment of the confidence which his country¬ 
men had placed in him throughout his life. 


238 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Pausanias, after his recall to Sparta, was subjected to a 
severe inquiry, but as no satisfactory evidence of his treacherous 
designs was produced, the accusation was dropped. Without 
leave from the ephors he went to Byzantium, and there 
renewed his criminal intrigues so openly, that they reached 
the ears of the authorities at home. He was summoned to 
return, and, though tried again, he could not be convicted, 
and was restored to liberty. He now planned an insurrection 
of the Helots, hoping, with their aid, to raise himself to the 
head of the state; at the same time he continued his corres¬ 
pondence with Persia, until one of the messengers entrusted 
with a letter, found that he, like all his predecessors, was to 
be put to death in Asia to prevent his divulging the scheme. 
His fear and resentment being roused, he revealed the 
whole affair to the ephors ; but they, not satisfied even with 
this, contrived, by a cunning device, to hear the truth from 
Pausanias’ own lips. The ephors then tried to arrest him ; 
but he fled into a temple of Athena, and as they feared to 
pollute the sanctuary with his blood, the roof was taken off 
and the entrance walled up. In this condition he was left 
until he was on the point of expiring. He was then carried 
out of the temple, and expired as soon as he had crossed the 
bounds of the sacred ground. But although he had not died 
in the temple, still the minds of the Spartans were often 
disturbed by religious scruples. 

30. The fate of Pausanias involved that of Themistocles. 
He too had become proud and indiscreet, but never acted the 
part of a traitor to his country. When his selfishness and 
avarice became known, numerous enemies rose against him 
at home, and he was gradually supplanted in the popular 
favour by younger men. Under these circumstances it was 
not difficult to persuade the Athenians that his presence was 
dangerous to the liberty of the state, and he was exiled by 
ostracism. He withdrew to Argos, where he was residing 


EXILE OF TIIEMISTOCLES. 


239 


in n. c. 471, when Pausanias was convicted. The Spartans 
had never forgiven Themistocles for the manner in which he 
had eluded their scheme of preventing the fortification of 
Athens; it was now said that the inquiry into the crime of 
Pausanias had led to discoveries showing that Themistocles 
also had been implicated in the plot; and it was demanded 
that the Athenians should punish him as the accomplice of 
the Spartan. Although no evidence whatever was then, or 
ever after, produced of his guilt, his enemies at Athens rejoiced 
at the opportunity, and officers were forthwith sent out to 
arrest him. Themistocles, foreseeing this, had fled to Corcyra, 
and thence to Epirus, where he was protected in the house 
of king Admetus. Being supplied with all necessaries by 
his host, he proceeded to Pydna, and there embarked for 
Ephesus, which he reached not without danger. Very soon 
after his arrival in Asia Xerxes died, b. c. 465, and was suc¬ 
ceeded by Artaxerxes. Themistocles went to the king’s 
court, and in a letter endeavoured to persuade him that he 
had claims upon his gratitude, and that his present misfor¬ 
tunes were the consequence of his zeal for the interest of 
Persia. This scheme succeeded, and Themistocles won the 
favour of Artaxerxes to such a degree, that even the courtiers 
are said to have envied him. After some time the king sent 
him to Asia Minor, assigning to him three flourishing towns 
for his maintenance, Magnesia having to provide him with 
bread, Myus with viands, and Lampsacos with wine. He thus 
spent the latter part of his life at Magnesia in princely splen¬ 
dour. He is generally said to have made away with himself, 
because he had promised the king more than he was able to 
perform ; but this account is at least doubtful. 


‘240 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE SUPREMACY OF ATHENS DOWN TO THE COMMENCEMENT OP 

THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 

1. As all fear of Greece being again invaded by the 
Persians was now removed, the Greeks, who had hitherto 
acted mainly on the defensive, resolved to assume the 
offensive ; and the situation of their colonies in Asia offered 
a fair pretext for this. Cimon of Athens, the son of 
Miltiades, was foremost in directing the attention of his 
countrymen to that quarter. He had no particular talent as 
an orator or statesman, but had given early proofs of ability 
on the field of battle. He moreover belonged to the aristo¬ 
cratic party, though he did not disdain to employ the means 
of a demagogue for the purpose of gaining popularity. He 
first distinguished himself in the battle of Salamis, and many 
then began to look upon him as a worthy rival of Themis- 
tocles. While the popularity of the latter was on the decline, 
Cimon was rapidly rising in popular favour in consequence of 
several successful enterprises, such as the capture of Eion on 
the Strymon, in b. c. 47 6, the reduction of Scyros for the 
Amphictions, and that of Carystos in Euboea. But the 
conquest of Naxos, in b. c. 466, was a far more important 
event. That island began to repent of its alliance with 
Athens, and the latter then exacted by force what was no 
longer cheerfully given. The Naxians were reduced by 
Cimon after a hard siege, and having become the subjects of 
Athens instead of its allies, they were treated with a severity 
which they could scarcely have expected from Persia. But 
their example did not deter others from attempting to get rid 
of the Athenian alliance ; one state revolted after another, and 
all were punished with the loss of their independence. Many 


THIRD MESSENIAN WAR. 


211 


also commuted their personal services in the endless expeditions 
for stated payments in money, and by this means lost their 
warlike spirit, while Athens acquired more and more power 
over those who were nominally her free allies. But their 
feeling of discontent arose from-their notion that the time of 
danger was passed, and that they needed no further protection. 

2. In the year b. c. 465, a large Persian fleet of about three 
hundred and fifty sail was assembled at the mouth of the 
river Eurymedon, in Pamphylia. Cimon, who had increased 
the number of his ships to two hundred and fifty, provoked 
the enemy to an engagement, and gained a complete victory. 
Having sunk two hundred of the enemy's vessels, he sailed 
up the river, and also defeated the Persian land-army. On 
his return he met a squadron of eighty galleys which was 
intended to strengthen the Persian fleet, but was utterly 
destroyed by him. After this treble victory, he sailed north¬ 
ward, where he expelled the remnants of the Persian forces 
in the Thracian Chersonesus. About b. c. 464, the Athenians 
became involved in a contest with the island of Thasos, regard¬ 
ing the gold mines in Thrace, which were claimed by Athens. 
The Thasians were first defeated at sea, and then closely 
besieged by Cimon. In this distress they applied to Sparta for 
assistance ; and the Spartans, delighted at the opportunity, 
were making preparations for invading Attica, when suddenly, 
in b. o. 464, the whole of Laconia was shaken by an earth¬ 
quake, during which immense blocks of stone rolled down 
from mount Taygetus, spreading terror and destruction all 
around. At Sparta itself only five houses were left standing, 
and upwards of twenty thousand persons were killed. Helots 
from all parts hastened to the city to take advantage of the 
misfortune of their masters, and it was only owing to the 
presence of mind of king Archidamus that the citizens were 
saved from the hands of revengeful slaves. But this was 
not all, for the Messenians also rose against their detested 

R 


242 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


rulers, and fortified themselves at Ithome. The Thasians, 
who were thus left to themselves, became subjects of Athens, 
and the Spartans, being unable to reduce the revolted Mes- 
senians, did not blush to send for assistance to the Athenians, 
against whom they had just been planning an expedition. 
But the aristocratic party, with Cimon at its head, happened 
just then to be all powerful at Athens, and as that party was 
at all times favourable to Sparta, Cimon himself was sent 
with a large force to besiege Ithome. As, however, the Athe¬ 
nians made no greater progress than the Spartans had made 
before, the latter, judging of others by themselves, began to 
suspect Cimon, and dismissed him and his army. The 
Athenians, understanding the real motive, were exasperated in 
the highest degree, and all connection with Sparta being 
broken off, an alliance was entered into with Argos, her 
ancient rival and enemy. The Messenian war was in the 
meantime carried on until b. c. 455, when the brave defenders 
of their liberty surrendered, on condition of leaving Pelo¬ 
ponnesus with their families for ever. The Athenians kindly 
gave to the Unfortunate Messenians the town of Haupactus, 
where they settled, waiting for a day of retribution. 

3. The democratic party at Athens was then headed by 
a most promising young man, Pericles, the son of Xanthip- 
pus, and a descendant of Cleisthenes. He had from his 
earliest days devoted himself to intellectual pursuits, and 
enjoyed the intimacy of the first men of the age; he had 
enriched his mind with all the stores at his command, that 
they might become instruments for managing the affairs of his 
country. During the period that Cimon was engaged in his 
military expeditions, Pericles had taken a prominent part in the 
discussions of the popular assembly, where his majestic appear¬ 
ance and his powerful eloquence, combined with his great 
wisdom and prudence, made him the acknowledged leader of 
the democracy and the most formidable opponent of Cimon. 


CIMON AND PERICLES. 


243 


The latter had made munificent use of his wealth, and though 
opposed to the popular interest, he did everything which his 
ample means enabled him to do, to win the favour of the 
people, that he might use them as a means for his ends; for 
he and his brother nobles were bent upon retaining the few 
privileges they yet possessed, and of putting a stop to the 
progress of popular liberty. Pericles was not able to rival 
Cimon in his reckless liberality, and probably would have 
disdained it if he had had the means. He conceived that it 
was more honourable for the poorer classes to be supplied 
with the means of enjoyment out of their own, that is, 
the public funds, than to depend upon the liberality of 
wealthy individuals. With this view he carried a series of 
measures, partly himself and partly through his friends, the 
most prominent among whom was Ephialtes, a man of rigid 
integrity, earnestness, and fearlessness. Pericles’ own conduct 
also was such that though he courted the people, he yet, 
from never descending to low means, always retained the 
respect of the citizens, though they might differ from him in 
their political views. 

4. The struggle between the aristocratic and democratic 
parties had been going on for some time, and on one occasion 
Cimon was in danger of being exiled; but the contest came 
to a head when Pericles and Ephialtes extended their reforms 
even to the Areopagus, the ancient stronghold of the aristo¬ 
cracy. The object of Pericles and his friends was to narrow 
the functions of the Areopagus so much as to leave it nothing 
but its venerable name. The aristocracy left no means untried 
to thwart their opponents ; but it fortunately happened that 
at this very time the Athenians were slighted by the Spartans 
for their want of success against Ithome, and this made Cimon 
and the whole aristocracy extremely unpopular. Under these 
circumstances, Ephialtes without much difficulty carried a 
decree by which the Areopagus seems to have been shorn of 


244 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


all its political power. Soon after this, Cimon was exiled hy 
ostracism, probably for the purpose of preventing any popular 
outbreak in the city. 

5. About this time, b.c. 460, Inarus, king of some Liby¬ 
an tribes in the west of Egypt, revolted against the Persians, 
and his authority was acknowledged in his own country and 
in the greater part of Egypt, which joined him. Artaxerxes 
sent a large army commanded by his own brother against the 
rebels. An Athenian fleet of two hundred sail happened at 
the time to be lying off Cyprus, and Inarus sent for its assist¬ 
ance. The armament immediately sailed southwards and 
enabled Inarus to defeat the Persians. The Athenian fleet 
then sailed up the Nile as far as Memphis, which was be¬ 
sieged, as a portion of the city was in the hands of the Per¬ 
sians. This siege lasted more than five years; and the 
Athenians, being in the end pressed by a very numerous army, 
were not only obliged to raise the siege, but were themselves 
surrounded by the enemy on an island in the Nile. All of 
them perished except a few who escaped to Cyrene and thence 
returned home. Inarus himself fell into the hands of the 
Persians, and was put to death b. c. 455. 

6. Owing to the rupture with Sparta, Athens lost the 
friendship of the Corinthians, but for this she was indemnified 
in some measure by gaining possession of Megara. This, 
however, roused the enmity not only of Corinth, but of 
iEgina and the maritime towns of Argolis, and war was 
declared in b. c. 457, while the Athenian armament was still 
in Egypt. But the Athenians with most undaunted courage 
attacked their enemies and defeated them in several engage¬ 
ments. Myronides was then at the head of the Athenian 
forces, and gained a most complete victory, in which every 
Corinthian soldier perished. During this war between Corinth 
and Athens, Artaxerxes sent an envoy to Sparta, endeavouring 
to induce the Spartans by bribes to attack the Athenians, in 


CIMON AND PERICLES. 


245 


order to compel tliem to withdraw their forces from Egypt. 
Sparta was then still engaged against Ithome, and could not 
comply with the king’s request, but Pericles, apprehensive of 
danger, completed the long walls connecting Athens with its 
port-town, which had been commenced some time before. He 
well knew that there was a party in the city ready at any 
moment to sacrifice their country, if thereby they hoped to 
recover any of their lost privileges. This became evident 
during an expedition of the Spartans against the Phocians, 
when the former were preparing to strike a blow at Athens, 
and the oligarchical faction in the city promised them their 
co-operation. But the scheme was suspected and thwarted, 
though in the battle which was fought near Tanagra in 
Boeotia, b. c. 457, the Athenians were defeated in conse¬ 
quence of the treacherous conduct of the Thessalians, with 
whom they had entered into an alliance some years before. 
This defeat was keenly felt by the Athenians, and hence in 
the following year, b.c. 456, they took the field again under 
the command of Myronides. This time their arms were 
successful, and at (Enophyta they gained a complete victory 
over the Boeotians, and razed the walls of Tanagra to the 
ground. Henceforth their influence predominated both in 
Phocis and in Boeotia, and soon after H£gina also capitulated, 
and became subject to Athens. 

7. The news of the disaster of the Athenians in Egypt 
does not seem in the least to have discouraged their fellow- 
citizens at home, who continued the war against Sparta and 
her allies as vigorously as before. Landings and ravages 
were made on the coasts of Peloponnesus, both in b. c. 455 and 
454, though no great advantages were gained. In the year 
b.c. 453 Cimon was recalled from exile, on the proposal of 
Pericles himself, who had probably become convinced of the 
necessity for all good citizens to co-operate against the 
schemes of the unprincipled oligarchical faction, which would 


246 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


have delivered Athens into the hands of a foreign enemy in 
preference to seeing the democratic party prosperous. About 
that time the honest Ephialtes was assassinated by aristocratic 
emissaries; and it was this and similar occurrences that sug¬ 
gested to Pericles the desirableness ®f forming a coalition with 
Cimon. The result was as had been anticipated, for during 
the three years after Cimon's return Greece was in the 
enjoyment of peace ; and this pause was followed by a truce 
of five years, during which Cimon undertook his last expedi¬ 
tion against the Persians. 

8. In Egypt, another pretender, Amyrtaeus, had arisen 
in the meantime, and, like his predecessor, solicited aid from 
Athens. The Athenians again complied with the request, and 
Cimon, with a fleet of two hundred galleys, sailed to Cyprus. 
Thence he sent a squadron to Amyrtaeus, while he himself 
laid siege to Citium; but he died there in b.o. 449, and his 
army was soon after compelled to raise the siege 'from want 
of provisions. On their return home, the Athenians fell in 
with a large fleet of Phoenician and Cilician galleys, and 
having completely defeated them, they followed up this victory 
by another which they gained on shore. Soon after this, 
they were joined by the squadron from Egypt, which had 
accomplished its main object there, and all sailed home. In 
later times, it was generally believed that, during his last 
campaign, Cimon had compelled the king of Persia to accept 
a peace, which obliged him to abandon the military occu¬ 
pation of Asia Minor to the distance of three days’ journey 
from the western coast. But subsequent events show that 
such an arrangement did not exist, and the whole story about 
the peace of Cimon is probably a fabrication originating in 
the vanity of the later Greeks. 

9. The peace of Greece was again disturbed in the year 
after Cimon's death, b. c. 448, by a quarrel between the 
Delphians and Phocians about the guardianship of the Delphic 


THIRTY YEARS* TRUCE. 


247 


temple and its treasures, which was wrested by the Phocians 
from their opponents, to whom it had belonged from time 
immemorial. A Spartan army recovered for the Delphians 
what they had lost, and several privileges were conferred at 
Delphi on the Spartans. But no sooner had the Spartan 
forces withdrawn, than Pericles advanced with an Athenian 
army, and undid their work. In the year following, the 
ascendancy of the Athenians in Boeotia was broken by a 
revolution, in which the party hostile to Athens completely 
gained the upper hand. The consequences of this soon 
became manifest on every side, for in b. c. 445, when the 
five years’ truce expired, Euboea revolted; and no sooner had 
Pericles crossed over to quell the insurrection, than he was 
informed that another had broken out at Megara, and that most 
of the soldiers of the Athenian garrison had been put to death ; 
at the same time, he learned that a Peloponnesian army was 
on its march against Attica. Pericles, therefore, returned, 
and found the Peloponnesians already ravaging the plains of 
his country; but, by means of bribes, he prevailed upon the 
Spartan commanders to give up their undertaking. Having 
thus got rid of this enemy, he returned with a large force to 
Euboea, and soon overpowered all resistance. But notwith¬ 
standing this success, the people of Athens were disposed to 
make peace. The Spartans also did not feel inclined to 
continue the war; and accordingly, in B.O. 445, a truce was 
concluded for thirty years, by which the Athenians were 
required to give up all their possessions in Peloponnesus—- 
that is, Troezen, the ports of Pegae and Nisaea<—and their 
connection with Achaia. Notwithstanding these concessions, 
Athens still remained mistress of the sea, and her maritime 
empire was untouched. The aristocracy, now headed by 
Thucydides, had opposed this truce, but Pericles bore down 
all opposition, for his influence at Athens was now greater 
than ever, and remained so till the last day of his life. 


248 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


10. During this time, Pericles was enabled to carry out 
his views into action. Throughout his life he had plainly 
two objects; first, to extend and strengthen the Athenian 
empire; and secondly, to raise the confidence and self-respect 
of his countrymen to a level with their lofty position. The 
Athenian confederacy had undergone considerable changes 
since its regulation by Aristides; and even in his lifetime 
the treasury had been transferred from Delos to Athens. 
Cimon had afterwards reduced the weaker states of the league 
to a defenceless condition, so that little remained to be done 
to change the confederacy into an empire, over which Athens 
ruled with almost despotic power. Pericles raised the annual 
tribute from four hundred and sixty to six hundred talents. 
All the subject states had a democratic form of government 
imposed upon them, whether they liked it or not; but what 
was worse than all, was the fact that all important trials 
were transferred from the cognizance of the local courts to 
the tribunals at Athens, which caused to the allies the greatest 
inconvenience and annoyance. 

11. In b. c. 440, an event occurred which seemed likely 
to interrupt the truce, but in reality consolidated the Athenian 
empire, and gave Pericles an opportunity of displaying his 
brilliant qualities as a military commander. The island of 
Samos had an aristocratic form of government, which the 
popular party were anxious to overthrow with the aid of 
Athens. Pericles was sent with a squadron of forty galleys 
to assist the popular party. On his arrival, he established 
a democratic form of government, and taking one hundred 
members of the aristocracy, he sent them to Lemnos as 
hostages. Leaving only a small garrison behind, he returned 
home. During his absence, some of the nobles entered into 
negotiation with the Persians, and with an army of mercen¬ 
aries .overpowered the Athenian garrison, restored the old 
form of government, and having also rescued the hostages, 


BEDUCTION OF SAMOS. 


249 


they openly renounced their connection with Athens. Sparta 
and her allies were applied to for assistance, hut to no purpose, 
for they were not inclined to break the truce. As soon as 
these proceedings became known at Athens, Pericles again 
set out with his fleet; he soon drove the Samians into their 
town, and surrounded it with entrenchments. As he ex¬ 
pected the approach of a Phoenician fleet which was said to 
be on its way, he sailed out to meet it; but it did not make its 
appearance. During his absence, the Samians gained con¬ 
siderable advantages, but his return changed the aspect of 
things. They were obliged to confine themselves to the 
defensive; and after the war had lasted for nine months, 
they were compelled by famine to capitulate, and become sub¬ 
jects of Athens. Byzantium, which had sided with Samos, 
was soon afterwards reduced to the same condition. 

12. Pericles on his return was received at Athens with 
extraordinary honours, and the whole success was ascribed to 
him. The conquest of Samos completed and consolidated the 
Athenian empire, over which Athens henceforth ruled without 
opposition and without restraint. The Athenians were now in 
a condition, by means of colonies in places where they seemed 
to be useful, both to strengthen themselves and to provide for 
the poorer classes. Settlers accordingly were sent to Oreos in 
Euboea, to Naxos, and Andros, and colonies were established 
at Amphipolis and Thurii. To this last colony, which was 
founded in b. c. 443, the Athenians invited foreigners from 
all parts of Greece, and among them were the historian 
Herodotus and the orator Lysias. Every Athenian citizen 
at this time must have felt his position raised, and Pericles 
endeavoured to enhance the value of the franchise, by rigor¬ 
ously excluding all those who were not entitled to its exer¬ 
cise ; at the same time he took care to provide useful employ¬ 
ment for those who had little or no means of subsistence, 
partly by sending out every year a squadron of sixty galleys^ 


250 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


in which the men were trained, and partly by the great 
architectural works which he planned for the defence and 
embellishment of the city. Among these works we may 
mention a third wall connecting the city with Piraeus, which 
ran between the two already completed; the temples which 
crowned the Acropolis, the most magnificent of which were 
the Parthenon or Virgin’s temple, adorned by the sculptures 
of Phidias, and the splendid approach to it called Propylaea. 
These and many other works gave employment to the genius 
of the artist as well as to the skill of the artizan, and during 
that period of extraordinary activity, there must have been a 
comparative scarcity of hands at Athens. 

13. But not only upon architectural works and their 
embellishment did Pericles spend the public treasures; he 
also devoted a considerable portion to spectacles and amuse- 
ments for the people. A taste for them had always existed 
and Pericles made them accessible to all, poor as well as 
rich. In this way the humbler classes were provided out of 
the public funds with the means of attending the theatre, 
and taking part in other public festivals. In like manner he 
introduced the practice of paying the jurors for their attendance 
in the courts of justice. These regulations, at first quite 
harmless, and perhaps no more than fair and just, afterwards 
became very detrimental to the welfare of the state, especially 
when the payments were increased to twice or thrice the 
original amount. Pericles is also said, though erroneously, 
to have introduced the payment for attendance in the popular 
assembly, which we afterwards find established. 

14. The period during which Pericles guided the Athenians 
is justly called after him the age of Pericles, and forms the 
most brilliant epoch in Athenian history. Down to the time 
of the Persian wars Athens did less for the intellectual and 
artistic progress of Greece than many other cities both in 
Europe and Asia; but her peaceful glories quickly followed 


AESCHYLUS AND SOPHOCLES. 


251 


and outshone those of her victories and conquests. Literature 
.and the arts were now cultivated there with greater success 
and rewarded with more distinguished honours than anywhere 
else. Architecture and sculpture rose to the highest perfec¬ 
tion, and Athens enriched literature with the drama, the 
highest and noblest of all poetical compositions. The drama 
grew out of the Doric choral poetry, whence the chorus con¬ 
tinued for a long time to form a very essential part in it. At 
the time when it reached its highest point, lyric poetry was 
gradually dying away, and Simonides of Cos, Bacchylides, 
and Pindar, were the last, and at the same time the greatest 
among the lyric poets of Greece. The most eminent dra¬ 
matists, at least in tragedy, belonged to the age of Pericles. 
Phrynichus, the first, whose works have perished, is highly 
praised by the ancients; and even iEschylus spoke of him as 
a worthy rival. But the way in which JEschylus developed 
and displayed the capabilities of the art, entitles him to be 
regarded as the father of Attic tragedy. He introduced the 
dialogue, and thereby raised the really dramatic portion of 
the composition to the principal rank, while the choral part 
became subordinate to it. He always exhibited three tra¬ 
gedies together, which were indeed distinct, but in reality 
constituted only one great drama, called a trilogy. Out 
of seventy pieces ascribed to him, seven only have been pre¬ 
served, and among them there is only one complete trilogy, 
the Oresteia. 

15. Sophocles, a younger contemporary of HSschylus, sur¬ 
passed him in the general harmony of his conceptions, in the 
equal distribution of grace and vigour, and in the unsurpassed 
charm of his language ; though in some respects iEschylus 
was perhaps a genius of a higher order. He was held in the 
greatest estimation by the Athenians, and the Antigone, one 
of his seven extant dramas, filled them with such admiration, 
that they appointed him, in b. c. 440, one of the generals who 


252 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


accompanied Pericles in the war against Samos. He him¬ 
self, however, experienced the mutability of popular taste, 
when he saw himself supplanted by Euripides, a poet of a 
much Jower order. Attic tragedy in the hands of these three 
great masters of the art was not an idle amusement, but a 
means employed for religious, moral, and sometimes even for 
political purposes; this last, however, was the case more espe¬ 
cially with comedy, for while tragedy took its subjects from the 
mythical history of Greece, the sphere of comedy lay within 
the walks of daily life, and its main business was with the 
immediate present, whence it supplied in some respects the 
place which is occupied in modern times by a free press. All 
theatrical performances were connected with the celebration 
of the festivals of Dionysus, under whose protection the comic 
poets enjoyed unbounded freedom and license. With this 
power the comic poets assailed every kind of vice and folly, 
if it was sufficiently notorious to render their ridicule intelli¬ 
gible, and men in the highest positions did not escape this 
kind of castigation. Comedy was raised to its highest per¬ 
fection during the period of the Peloponnesian war by the 
genius of Aristophanes. 

16. The mere fact of Pericles possessing unbounded influ¬ 
ence with the people, and being their acknowledged leader, 
could not fail to call forth envy, jealousy, and hatred ; and 
suspicions were raised and circulated not only regarding his 
private life, which indeed presented some vulnerable points, 
but also in reference to his public actions. The first attacks, 
however, were not made directly against himself, but against 
his friends, through whom his enemies hoped to wound him. 
First of all, Phidias was charged with having embezzled a 
portion of the gold destined to be employed in his magnificent 
statue of Athena in the Parthenon. Fortunately the gold 
had been applied in such a manner that it could be taken 
down and weighed, and this circumstance silenced the accusers, 


THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 


253 


when called upon to prove their assertion. Another attack 
upon the artist for having introduced his own portrait among 
the figures on the shield of the goddess, was more successful. 
Phidias was thrown into prison for impiety, and died there. 
Having gained their object in- this matter, the enemies of 
Pericles began their manoeuvres against Aspasia, the most 
beautiful and accomplished woman at Athens, in whose safety 
the great statesman felt as much concern as in his own. His 
most intimate friends were the most illustrious philosophers 
of the time, whose creed certainly was very different from 
the superstition of the multitude. These and other circum¬ 
stances furnished materials for a prosecution against Pericles. 
But all machinations failed, and their failure at length in¬ 
duced his enemies to drop their proceedings. Pericles, with 
one brief interruption, never again saw himself assailed in 
his high position, which he maintained down to the end of 
his life. We cannot indeed wonder that both ancient and 
modern historians have brought charges against him; but a 
closer examination shows that they are based upon nothing 
but vulgar gossip and scandal, which are always ready and 
glad to detract from real and genuine greatness. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

' ' \ r ■ , ! .• r 5 • 

THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 

1. The prosperity of Athens, and her ever-increasing 
power and glory, could not but excite the hatred and alarm 
of the other Greek states, and especially of Sparta, which saw 
itself humbled in proportion as Athens rose. While the 
former and her allies were united in their jealousy of Athens, 
the Athenian confederacy could not be entirely relied upon, for 



254 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


many of the' allies submitted only with great reluctance to their 
mistress, who seemed, and in many instances actually was, 
more concerned about her own aggrandisement than about 
the welfare of those whom she professed to protect. But 
there were other causes which increased the hostile feelings 
between Athens and Sparta: Athens was the representative 
of the Ionian race, and everywhere introduced or supported 
a democratic form of government, while Sparta, the repre¬ 
sentative of the Dorians, favoured aristocratic or oligarchic 
institutions. These feelings and animosities were the real 
causes of the Peloponnesian war, which for twenty-seven 
years disturbed the peace of the whole Greek world, and ter¬ 
minated in the downfall of Athens. Both parties seem to 
have been aware of what such a war would lead to, and 
avoided its outbreak as long as they could, until at length 
several circumstances concurred which made the continuance 
of peace a matter of impossibility. 

2. Epidamnus, a colony of Corcyra, on the coast of Illy- 
ricum, was at that time distracted by internal feuds, during 
which the aristocratic party was expelled from the city. With 
the assistance of the neighbouring barbarians, the exiled nobles 
pressed the town closely. The Epidamnians applied for 
succour to their mother city of Corcyra, and as the Corcy- 
raeans did not listen to the request, the Epidamnians 
addressed themselves to Corinth, the mother-city of Corcyra, 
which had likewise taken a part in the establishment of the 
colony of Epidamnus. Corinth gladly seized the occasion, 
because it afforded her an opportunity of curbing the spirit of 
Corcyra, which had become very powerful, and neglected the 
performance of the ordinary duties of a colony towards the 
mother-city. A Corinthian army accordingly proceeded by 
land to Epidamnus, and the Corcyraeans on being informed 
of this went with a fleet to Epidamnus, demanding of its 
citizens to restore the exiles and to dismiss the Corinthian 


AFFAIRS OF CORCYRA. 


255 


garrison. When this was refused, the Corcyraeans, joined by 
the exiles and others, blockaded Epidamnus by land and by 
sea. The Corinthians then sent out a large force to raise 
the siege of Epidamnus, and at the same time declared war 
against Corcyra. A naval engagement took place between 
the Corinthian and Corcyraean fleets near the mouth of the 
Ambracian gulf, in which the Corcyraeans gained a complete 
victory. On the same day, Epidamnus was obliged to sur¬ 
render to the besiegers, who sold all its inhabitants as slaves, 
while the Corinthians were kept in captivity. This happened 
in b. c. 434. 

3. After this defeat, the Corinthians made great efforts 
to protect their own colonies on the Ionian sea, and to 
strengthen themselves for the continuation of the war, while 
the Corcyraeans, on the other hand, applied for assistance to 
Athens. Corinth also sent envoys to Athens to counteract 
their influence. The Athenians took the affair into serious 
consideration, and were at first inclined to side with Corinth, 
but afterwards concluded a defensive alliance with Corcyra 
for the protection of their respective territories. But at the 
same time they did not declare war against Corinth. In 
accordance with this treaty of alliance, Athens sent ten 
galleys to Corcyra, with orders not to engage in any contest, 
unless Corcyra should be attacked. The Corinthian fleet of 
one hundred and fifty ships soon after fell in, near Sybota, 
with that of the Corcyraeans, which consisted of one hundred 
and ten, the Corcyraean land army being drawn up on the 
coast. In the ensuing sea fight, neither party gained a 
decisive victory. The ten Athenian galleys, however, seeing 
their allies hard pressed, took part in the contest. In the 
meantime, twenty more ships had come from Athens, and 
when they in conjunction with the Corcyraeans again offered 
battle, the Corinthians withdrew, merely charging the Athe¬ 
nians, through the mouth of a herald, with having violated 


256 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the peace. These occurrences belong to the year b. c. 432, 
and are the first acts of open hostility between Athens and 
Corinth. 

4. At the same time the Athenians were involved in a 
war with Perdiccas, king of Macedonia, who tried to ally 
himself with Sparta and Corinth, and did all he could to 
induce the cities in the north of the iEgean to shake off their 
alliance with Athens. Potidaea, one of those towns, was a 
colony of Corinth, and the Athenians, in order to be before¬ 
hand, ordered the Potidaeans to destroy their fortifications, to 
give hostages, and to dismiss the Corinthian magistrates. As 
Sparta had openly declared its determination to protect the 
Potidaeans, they were emboldened to assert their independence 
of Athens, and other towns in those parts followed their 
example. Meantime an Athenian fleet arrived to enforce the 
orders of the sovereign city; but the admiral Archestratus 
finding his armament too small to carry on the war against 
the revolted cities, sailed to the coast of Macedonia, and com¬ 
menced hostilities against Perdiccas. The Corinthians now 
also sent one thousand men to support Potidaea, and the 
Athenians despatched a second squadron, under the command 
of Callias, who, finding Archestratus engaged in the siege of 
Pydna, prevailed on him to make peace with Perdiccas, that 
they might be able to direct all their forces against the 
Corinthians and their friends. Accordingly they proceeded 
by land to Potidaea. On the isthmus near Olynthos they 
encountered their enemies and defeated them, notwithstanding 
the treacherous desertion of Perdiccas, b. c. 432. The Pelo¬ 
ponnesians and Corinthians, however, succeeded in throwing 
themselves into the town of Potidaea, which the Athenians 
forthwith began to besiege both by land and by sea. 

5. As it was evident that these disputes could not be easily 
settled, a congress of the Peloponnesian allies was summoned 
to Sparta, and all states which believed themselves to be 


BEGINNING OF THE WAR. 


257 


wronged by Athens were invited to send deputies to the meet¬ 
ing. Many complaints were brought forward by AEgina and 
Megara, but above all by Corinth. Athenian envoys, who 
happened to be at Sparta on other business, manfully defended 
the conduct of their city. But war was decreed, notwithstand¬ 
ing the cautious advice of the Spartan king Archidamus, who 
wished to settle the disputes by negotiation. This declaration 
of war belongs to b.c. 432, but the Spartans, with their usual 
slowness and caution, did not proceed to action at once, and 
a whole year passed away before they were ready to take the 
field. In the meantime, however, they did all they could to 
justify the war in the eyes of Greece, and to show that its 
declaration was a matter of necessity rather than choice. Nay, 
Sparta went so far as to declare that she wished for peace, and 
was prepared to keep it, if the Athenians would raise the siege 
of Potidaea, and make AEgina and Megara independent. The 
Athenians, guided by Pericles, declared themselves willing to 
refer their differences to impartial judges, but added that they 
would always be ready to repel any attack. After this no 
further negotiation was attempted. 

6. Before the general war commenced, an outrage was 
committed by the Thebans upon Plataeae, the ally of Athens, 
which, in the spring of e. c. 431, they surprised by night. 
But nearly all the invaders were taken prisoners by the Pla- 
taeans, and one hundred and eighty were put to death. Athens 
provided Plataeae with a military force to defend itself and 
with supplies, at the same time inviting those who were unfit 
for service during the siege which was anticipated, to come 
to Athens. In the meantime* active preparations were made 
both by Sparta and Athens. The sympathies of most of the 
states of continental Greece were in favour of the Spartans, who 
declared themselves the champions of the liberty and indepen¬ 
dence of all the Greeks. But still all Greece looked forward 
with sad forebodings to the real outbreak of the war. The allies 

s 


258 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


of Sparta included all tine Peloponnesians except tlie Arrives, 
wlio remained neutral; beyond the Isthmus she was supported 
by Megara, Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, and the cities of Ambracia, 
Leucas, and Anactorium; Sparta further courted the friendship 
of Persia, and called upon the Dorian colonies in Sicily and 
Italy for assistance. The allies of the Athenians, on the other 
hand, were Chios, Lesbos, Plataeae, the Messenians at Nau- 
pactus, the greater part of Acarnania, Zacynthos, and Corcyra, 
while they received tribute from the following towns and 
countries which were subject to them:—Caria, the Dorian 
cities in Asia Minor, Ionia, the cities on the Hellespont, the 
coast of Thrace, all the islands between Peloponnesus and 
Crete, and the Cyclades, with the exception of Melos and 
Thera. All Greece was thus divided into two great hostile 
camps, only few states maintaining a position of neutrality. 

7. When all preparations were completed, king Archidamus 
assembled the Peloponnesian allies on the isthmus of Corinth, 
and in the summer of b. c. 431 invaded Attica. He confined 
himself, however, to the north about the town of CEnoe, so 
that the Athenians, who maintained the defensive, had time 
to gather their movable property within the fortifications of 
the city. Archidamus then made attacks upon several country 
towns, and ravaged the fields, for his object was to draw the 
Athenians out to battle. But Pericles was immovable, and 
with the greatest firmness adhered to the plan of operation he 
had once adopted. Archidamus, finding at last that he could 
not tempt his enemy, returned home and disbanded his army. 
In the meantime, an Athenian fleet of one hundred galleys had 
been retaliating upon Peloponnesus, the coasts of which they 
ravaged; another squadron devastated the coast of Locris; the 
iEginetans were driven with their wives and children from their 
island, and the Athenian fleet in the western seas continued 
its operations against the confederates of Sparta. The alliance 
which the Athenians in this year formed with the Thracian 


PLAGUE AT ATHENS. 


259 


chief Sitalces, was of great service to them in the war against 
the Chalcidian towns and Macedonia. Late in the autumn of 
the same year the Athenians, commanded by Pericles himself, 
made a ravaging incursion into Megara, which was afterwards 
repeated year after year, just as the Peloponnesians, during 
the first five years of the war, repeated their invasion of Attica, 
neither party being apparently inclined to bring the war to a 
close by a decisive battle. The war, however, was carried 
on during that period in several parts of Greece; and on the 
whole, the Athenians had generally the advantage over their 
enemies. 

8. In the second year of the war, just when Arcliidamus had 
entered Attica early in the summer, Athens was visited by a 
fearful pestilence, which, with few interruptions, continued to 
rage for two years, and carried off four thousand four hundred 
citizens, and no less than ten thousand slaves. The city was 
at the time overcrowded with country-people and their cattle 
from all parts of Attica, and this state of things naturally 
aggravated the evil. The loss of lives was perhaps a minor 
calamity, compared with the moral effects produced by the 
plague; for the people in their despair became reckless, and 
regardless of all laws, human and divine, thinking that, after 
all, their life was not safe for a single hour. The Lacedaemo¬ 
nians, notwithstanding this, ravaged Attica both in the north 
and in the south for a period of forty days, and then returned 
home. The Athenian fleet, as in the first year, made its 
ravaging tour round Peloponnesus; another squadron destined 
for Potidaea was obliged to return, in consequence of the plague 
having broken out among the crew. Potidaea continued to be 
besieged until about the end of the second year of the war, when 
the inhabitants were compelled to surrender by famine. The 
fearful and deadly hatred which had already sprung up among 
the belligerents was displayed by the merciless cruelty shown 
by the Spartans against inoffensive merchants, who were inva- 


260 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


riably killed, unless they declared themselves in favour of 
Sparta ; and Athens retaliated by murdering some Pelopon¬ 
nesian ambassadors who had been intercepted. 

The most memorable event of the third year of the war, 
b. c. 429, was the death of Pericles by the plague, which had 
previously bereft him of his children and dearest friends. 
The loss of such a man at this time was irreparable, and the 
Athenians, to their cost, soon found out what he had been to 
them. His successors were men swayed by ambition, avarice, 
and envy. Pericles had ruled the democracy with a gentle, 
yet mighty hand; but those who succeeded him courted the 
favour of the people by humouring its evil passions, and thus 
leading it to acts which, both morally and materially, under¬ 
mined its power. Another remarkable event of the same 
year is the heroic and almost miraculous defence of the little 
town of Plataeae against the united efforts of the Pelopon¬ 
nesians, for this year Archidamus, instead of invading Attica, 
directed all his forces against Plataeae. In the end of the 
summer, he returned to Peloponnesus, but the siege of 
Plataeae lasted until b. c. 427, when, after the loss of half 
its defenders, the survivors were obliged to capitulate. By 
the desire of the Thebans, the most inveterate enemies of the 
Plataeans, they were butchered one by one, and all the women 
were made slaves. The town itself was afterwards razed to 
the ground. It is not known, though it may easily be 
conjectured, what circumstances prevented the Athenians from 
sending active support to their ancient and faithful allies. In 
the year in which Pericles died, no exploit of any consequence 
was performed on land, but Phormio, the commander of the 
fleet in the western sea, gained a complete victory over the 
Lacedaemonians, who had advanced to support the Ambracians 
in an attempt to conquer Acarnania. In a subsequent 
engagement near Naupactus, he was equally successful, and 
the Peloponnesian fleet retreated to Corinth. But, on the 


REVOLT OF LESBOS. 


261 


whole, the Athenians were unable, during this year, to make 
any great efforts abroad, in consequence of the loss of their 
great leader, and the continued ravages of the plague. 

9. The fourth year of the war, b. c. 428, began with the 
usual invasion of Attica by king Archidamus. The Athenians, 
also, still adhered to their former tactics, only preventing, by 
their cavalry, the enemy from approaching too near the city. 
The most important event of this year was the revolt of 
Lesbos, a wealthy and powerful island. There, as in other 
allied states, the aristocratic party was favourable to Sparta, 
while the popular party clung to the alliance with Athens. 
The city of Mytilene, which took the lead in the revolutionary 
movement, had sometime before made overtures to Sparta, 
which had been rejected. Information of the design, however, 
was carried to Athens, and the Mytileneans were thus driven 
into open rebellion before they were sufficiently prepared. 
The Athenians at first endeavoured, by persuasion, to induce 
the islanders to remain faithful to them; but as they failed, 
a fleet was dispatched against them, and hostilities were 
commenced. As the Mytileneans did not feel strong enough 
to engage in the contest, they, for the purpose of gaining 
time, concluded a truce with the Athenian admirals, but at 
the same time sent envoys to solicit the support of Sparta. 
The people of Athens, however, refusing to negotiate with 
the rebels, ordered hostilities to be recommenced. The 
Spartans in the meantime admitted the Lesbians into the 
Peloponnesian league, and promised to protect them, for it 
was believed that Athens had fallen into a helpless condition. 
But they miscalculated, for Athens in that year had a more 
powerful navy than ever before, and took the greatest precau¬ 
tions in guarding Attica, Salamis, and Euboea. The Spartans 
had resolved to attack Athens, both by land and by sea; but 
the promptness of the Athenians, whose fleet even threatened 
the safety of Sparta itself, compelled the enemy to relinquish 


' 262 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


their undertaking. It was, however, decreed that a fleet 
should be sent to the relief of Lesbos. In the meantime, the 
Athenians, under Paches, invested Mytilene both by land and 
by sea, and the promised fleet from Peloponnesus did not 
make its appearance until the year following, b. c. 427. In 
the beginning of this year, the Peloponnesians, commanded 
by Cleomenes, again invaded Attica, and ravaged the country 
in all directions. Their stay was prolonged, in the expectation 
of receiving favourable tidings from Lesbos. But the Myti- 
leneans had been forced to surrender before the Peloponnesian 
fleet arrived. Paches then became master of the island, and 
many of those who had favoured the revolt were first sent to 
Tenedos and then to Athens. The Peloponnesian fleet, after 
having made a descent upon the coast of Ionia, returned home, 
but was dispersed by a storm before it reached the coast of 
Peloponnesus. Paches remained in Lesbos for the purpose of 
regulating its affairs; but it was for the people at home to decide 
what punishment was to be inflicted upon the Mytileneans. 
On the advice of the bloodthirsty Cleon, a leather-merchant, 
who was then the most popular man at Athens, it was decreed 
that all the men should be put to death, and the women and 
children sold as slaves. Orders to this effect were immediately 
sent to Paches. But on the following day, the Athenian 
people, repenting of the bloody decree, reversed their previous 
resolution, and, on the proposal of Diodotus, it was decreed 
that only the most guilty among the rebels should be put to 
death. A second ship was accordingly sent off to prevent 
the execution of the first order, and it arrived just in time 
to save the unfortunate Mytileneans. One thousand of the 
leaders in the insurrection, however, were put to death, and 
Mytilene lost its ships and walls. Lesbos, instead of a free 
ally, now became subject to Athens. This year is also 
marked by a civil war between the aristocratic and democratic 
parties in the island of Corcyra, which in cruelty and ferocity 


LAST INVASION OF ATTICA. 


263 


is scarcely equalled by any similar occurrence in ancient 
history, and in which the Corcyraeans destroyed their own 
prosperity for ever. 

10. The same epidemic which in Greece set Dorians 
against Ionians, and the nobles against the demos, had in the 
meantime also spread to Sicily, where Syracuse headed the 
Doric cities, while the Chalcidian or Ionian towns supported 
Leontini, which was at war with Syracuse. The Leontine 
envoy Gorgias prevailed upon the Athenians to send a fleet 
to Sicily, which was intended partly to prevent supplies being 
conveyed from Sicily to Peloponnesus, and partly to try to 
reduce Sicily to a state of dependence upon Athens. This 
squadron was sent in b. c. 427, and took its station at 
Khegium in the south of Italy, from which point it made 
some ravaging expeditions. 

11. In the beginning of the year 426 a Peloponnesian 
army again assembled on the Isthmus, but a succession of 
earthquakes terrified the Spartans so much that they abstained 
from entering Attica, and the Athenians being thus unmolested 
at home, were enabled to take the offensive in several success¬ 
ful enterprises in Boeotia, Locris, and JEtolia. In Sicily, 
too, the Athenians made some progress, for they compelled the 
towns of Mylae and Messene to surrender, and gained pos¬ 
session of a fortified place on the river Halex in southern 
Italy. In the following year, b. c. 425, the war between the 
Syracusans and the allies of Athens was continued, though 
the Athenians themselves took no active part in it. In Greece 
itself the campaign of this year was again opened by an inva¬ 
sion of Attica under King Agis, but bad tidings from Pelo¬ 
ponnesus obliged him to quit Attica, after a stay of only 
fifteen days. This invasion, the fifth, was the last that 
Sparta attempted. The news by which Agis was induced to 
return was, that Demosthenes, a distinguished general of the 
Athenians, had gained a firm footing at Pylos in Messenia. 


264 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Demosthenes, in a private capacity, had accompanied the fleet 
sailing to Corcyra, under the command of Sophocles and 
Eurymedon, hut had permission to land on the coasts of Pelo¬ 
ponnesus and harass the enemy. Pylos was then a deserted 
place, hut Demosthenes, perceiving the advantages of the 
position, resolved to fortify it and to establish himself in it. 
With the assistance of the fleet, which was obliged by stress 
of weather to take shelter in the excellent harbour of Pylos, 
the object was soon attained. The Spartans, who had at 
first looked on with indifference, became alarmed; the army 
was recalled from Attica, and attacks were made upon Pylos, 
but to no purpose; for Demosthenes acted with great prudence, 
and was reinforced by runaway Helots and Messenians, as 
well as by a squadron of Athenian galleys. The Spartans 
then took possession of the uninhabited island of Sphacteria, 
situated in front of the harbour, with a body of heavy-armed 
men commanded by Epitadas, with a view to block up the 
harbour. All attacks of the Lacedaemonians were repelled, 
and the Athenians then blockaded the Spartans shut up in 
Sphacteria, who would have been starved to death had they 
not been supplied with provisions by the desperate daring of 
some Helots, who thereby hoped to win their liberty. Under 
these circumstances Sparta would gladly have come to an 
understanding with Athens; but in the latter city Cleon had 
the popular ear, and the terms proposed were of such a nature 
that Sparta could not accept them. In the meantime the 
Athenians, who were besieged in the fortress of Pylos, like¬ 
wise began to suffer from want of provisions, and the pro¬ 
tracted siege in the end made the people at Athens repent of 
not having accepted the offers of Sparta. Cleon, however, 
with his usual energy and boastfulness, went so far as to 
intimate, that if he had the command he would bring the 
Spartans from Sphacteria captive to Athens. Upon this the 
people, half in joke and half in earnest, appointed him com- 


SUCCESS OF THE ATHENIANS. 


265 


mander. Cleon accordingly embarked, and on bis arrival 
Demosthenes' skilful management and other circumstances 
had just brought the state of matters to a crisis. An attack 
was made upon the island on all sides, and with the aid of 
Messenians acquainted with the locality, and favoured by 
the accidental conflagration of a forest which had shortly 
before covered the island with ashes, the Athenians drove 
the Spartans into a fort in a comer of Sphacteria, and then 
forced them to surrender at discretion. Of the original num¬ 
ber of four hundred and twenty Spartans two hundred and 
ninety still survived and were carried as prisoners to Athens. 
What Cleon had rashly promised was thus made good by 
accident. 

12. Pylos remained in the hands of the Athenians, who 
were joined by many Messenians and Helots, and proved a 
source of great annoyance to Sparta. The Spartans made 
several attempts to recover their prisoners by negotiation, but 
the Athenians, elated with their success, made too exorbitant 
demands, and in the end declared that they would put all the 
prisoners to death, if the Peloponnesians again invaded Attica. 

During the same year the Athenians were victorious also 
in other parts, especially in an undertaking conducted by 
Nicias against Corinth. In b. c. 424 they reached the highest 
point of their good fortune, and nothing seemed to check 
their unbounded spirit of enterprise. Among other conquests, 
they made themselves masters of the island of Cythera, a point 
of the greatest importance to Laconia. These events were 
extremely discouraging to the Spartans, who in their despond¬ 
ency now confined themselves to defending the most important 
places, leaving the Athenians to continue their ravaging 
expeditions. While the Athenians were thus flushed with 
success and victory at home, the commanders of their fleet in 
Sicily concluded peace with the Sicilians without having 
made any conauest in those quarters. The Sicilians, under 


266 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the wise guidance of Hermocrates, had come to the convic¬ 
tion that by fighting against one another, they were only 
weakening themselves and paving the way for foreign 
conquerors. A peace was accordingly concluded at a 
congress held in Gela, and the allies of the Athenians 
dismissed their friends because they no longer needed their 
assistance. The people at Athens were so ill satisfied with 
this that they punished some of the generals, on the alleged 
ground that they had been induced by bribes to quit Sicily. 

13. There had latterly been rising at Sparta a man not 
only distinguished for his valour, but possessed of qualities 
which few Spartans ever displayed, either in public or in 
private life—genuine kindness and affability. This was 
Brasidas; he had already signalised himself during the siege 
of Pylos and elsewhere. He now checked the undertakings 
of the Athenians against Megara, compelled them to give up 
that city, and confine themselves to the port-town of Nisaea, 
whereupon an oligarchy was established at Megara. But 
this loss was insignificant in comparison with those which were 
to be inflicted on Athens by the same hand in the north of 
the iEgean, whither he was then proceeding. Before he exerted 
his influence there, however, the Athenians suffered a serious 
defeat in Boeotia, whither they had been invited by a party 
favourably disposed to them. The battle of Delium, a sanc¬ 
tuary of Apollo, cost the Athenians a loss of one thousand 
heavy-armed men, besides a large number of light-troops and 
others. This defeat was the most serious and the most 
bloody that the Athenians sustained during the first fourteen 
years of the war, but it was only the beginning of greater 
disasters. The Spartans resolved to transfer the seat of the 
war to Chalcidice and the coast of Thrace, hoping thereby to 
compel the Athenians to abandon Pylos and Cythera; and 
Brasidas was the man chosen to conduct the operations in 
that quarter. He proceeded to the north by land, and on 


BRASIDAS IN THE NORTH. 


267 


reaching Macedonia he was joined at once by the fickle king 
Perdiccas. After spending some time in endeavouring to 
settle a dispute between the king and Arrhibaeus, king of the 
Lyncestians, he advanced to Chalcidice, and proclaimed him¬ 
self the deliverer of the Greek towns from the yoke of the 
Athenians. His kindness and frankness won all hearts; 
the name of the Lacedaemonians through him became popu¬ 
lar among the Athenian allies, and many of them wished to 
become connected with Sparta. Acanthos and Stagiros at 
once revolted from Athens, and admitted Lacedaemonian 
garrisons. During the ensuing winter he induced Amphipolis 
on the Strymon to surrender, but the historian Thucydides 
saved Eion at the mouth of the river for the Athenians. The 
surrender of Amphipolis was followed by that of several 
smaller towns. Brasidas, though ill supported by Sparta, 
was thus making rapid progress, while the Athenians under¬ 
took scarcely anything worthy of notice, so that the advan¬ 
tages they had gained in and about Peloponnesus were now 
counterbalanced by the conquests of Brasidas in the north. 
The Lacedaemonians, however, never lost sight of their fellow- 
citizens who were kept in captivity at Athens; both parties 
in fact were anxious to come to terms, and a truce was con¬ 
cluded at the beginning of the ninth year, b.c. 423. During 
this truce, which was to last for one year, negotiations for a 
permanent peace were to be conducted. 

14. When the terms of the peace were on the point of 
being settled, an event occurred in Chalcidice, which induced 
the Athenians to break off all negotiation, and commence 
hostilities against the revolted towns in that district. Brasidas, 
on his return from Macedonia, whither he had gone to assist 
Perdiccas a second time, found the Athenians engaged in 
active hostilities, and the truce was evidently broken in 
the north, though in Greece proper it continued to be 
observed, probably from the general desire for peace. While 


263 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the Athenians were besieging Scione, Perdiccas again allied 
himself with them, and prevented the passage of reinforce¬ 
ments which were on their way to Brasidas. In the begin¬ 
ning of b. c. 422, when the truce expired, Cleon undertook 
the command of the Athenian forces in the north, and pro¬ 
ceeded to Scione, which was still besieged. He at once suc¬ 
ceeded in taking Torone during the absence of Brasidas, and 
then sailed towards Amphipolis. There he was met by the 
Spartan commander, who had in the meantime received 
considerable reinforcements. As soon as Cleon saw that the 
enemy was ready to engage in a battle, he began to retreat; 
but Brasidas perceiving this fell upon the Athenians and soon 
routed them. Brasidas himself received a mortal wound 
while rushing against the enemy, and was carried from the 
field by his soldiers. Cleon had from the first thought of 
nothing but flight, and being overtaken by a common soldier 
he was slain, while the Athenians made a long and brave resist¬ 
ance, until in the end they were put to flight. They lost 
six hundred men, while the Lacedaemonians had only seven 
dead, and those who had escaped returned home. The memory 
of Brasidas was honoured at Amphipolis, where he died, with 
annual games and a festival called the Brasideia. 

15. The plans which had been formed by the great 
Brasidas were not carried out by his countrymen, who were 
bent upon making peace and obtaining the liberation of their 
prisoners. The pride and arrogance of the Athenians had 
been considerably lowered by their recent losses, and Cleon, 
the principal advocate of the war, was no more. Nicias, who 
now guided the councils of the Athenians, though a brave 
and able general, was in favour of peace. Negotiations, 
accordingly, were commenced, and continued during the ensu¬ 
ing winter. At length, in the spring of b. c. 421 the basis 
of a peace was settled, and it was agreed that each of the 
belligerent parties should restore what they had conquered 


TIIE PEACE OF NICIAS. 


269 


during the war. This peace was agreed toby Athens and Sparta 
and their respective allies, with the exception of the Boeotians, 
Corinthians, Eleans, and Megarians. All the Athenian and 
Lacedaemonian prisoners were, of course, returned without 
ransom. This peace, commonly called the peace of Nicias, 
was concluded for a period of fifty years. The Spartans were 
to commence carrying the terms of the peace into effect, and 
the Athenians to follow. Early in the same year in which 
this peace was concluded, the Spartans entered into an offen¬ 
sive and defensive alliance with Athens, in which it was 
stipulated that each should be entitled to increase or diminish 
the number of its allies. This plan had been devised by 
Sparta, because her thirty years’ peace with Argos had just 
expired, and she wished to strengthen herself for the event 
of a war with that state. But the measure at once roused the 
fear and opposition of the smaller states, and it was evident 
from the first that the peace could not be of long duration. 

16. For nearly seven years after the conclusion of the 
peace of Nicias, the Spartans and Lacedaemonians indeed 
abstained from invading each other’s territories, but Greece 
was nevertheless not in the enjoyment of peace, for neither 
Athens nor Sparta strictly adhered to the terms agreed upon, 
each being anxious to increase the circle of its allies. 
Meantime Argos put itself at the head of a new confederacy, 
which was to embrace all the Greeks except the Athenians and 
Spartans, and was joined by the Mantineans, Eleans, Corin¬ 
thians, and Chalcidians, while others were only wavering. 
Sparta came to a separate understanding with Boeotia, and 
Argos declared itself in favour of Athens. Amid these diffi¬ 
cult complications, the warlike dispositions of the Athenians 
were fanned by Alcibiades, who was still a young man, but 
was honoured by the people on account of his ancestors. He 
was an extraordinary man, and perhaps the most perfect 
image of the Athenian people themselves. The consciousness 


270 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


of his powers, and his reckless ambition, impelled him on all 
occasions to claim the foremost place ; he was naturally of an 
aristocratic temperament, and whenever he appeared as a 
popular leader, it was for the purpose of gaining some per¬ 
sonal object. It was this man who brought about the con¬ 
clusion of an alliance between Athens, Argos, Elis, and 
Mantineia; it was to be both offensive and defensive, and to 
last for one hundred years. The Corinthians soon after 
returned to their alliance with Sparta. All this occurred in 
b. c. 420, and in the following year symptoms of a great and 
general struggle appeared in Peloponnesus, for a war between 
Argos and Epidaurus furnished opportunities to the Athe¬ 
nians of annoying Sparta. But peace was formally still main¬ 
tained. In b. c. 418, however, the Argives, stimulated by 
Alcibiades, went so far in their provocations, that Sparta 
could endure it no longer. The Lacedaemonians with a con¬ 
siderable force entered the territory of Mantineia,and in a 
battle fought against the Argives gained a decisive victory. 
This battle of Mantineiaat once restored the military glory of 
Sparta, which was further strengthened by the fact that a 
party at Argos, hostile to its democratic constitution, brought 
about a peace with Sparta, in spite of the efforts made by 
Alcibiades to thwart it. Argos renounced her former allies, 
and discontinued her hostilities against Epidaurus. Argos 
and Sparta then endeavoured to draw into their alliance as 
many states as possible, and Sparta in particular was busily 
engaged in establishing oligarchic forms of government wher¬ 
ever her influence enabled her to do so. 

17. But in b. c. 417, the democratic party at Argos re¬ 
covered its former position, and the aid sent by Sparta to 
support the oligarchy came too late. The victorious party 
formed connections with Athens, and provided for the safety 
of the city in case of an attack. In b. c. 416, Alcibiades 
sailed with a squadron of twenty galleys to Argos, where he 


CONQUEST OF MELOS. 


271 


took on board three hundred of the leading oligarchs, and 
then deposited them in the neighbouring islands, where they 
were guarded as prisoners by the Athenians. The Doric 
isle of Melos was the only island that did not belong to the 
Athenian confederacy; attempts had previously been made 
to gain it over, but without effect. The Athenians now 
thought circumstances favourable, and sent out a fleet under 
Cleomedes to reduce Melos. Negotiations were first tried, 
but the Melians rejected them, and all they were ready to 
agree to was to remain neutral. The Athenians accordingly 
began to besiege the town. The courage and perseverance 
of the Melians protracted the siege until the following winter, 
when, finding resistance no longer possible, they surrendered 
at discretion. The ravages of the Athenians reduced the 
island to a wilderness, which was peopled again by five 
hundred settlers sent by the conquerors. The Spartans, still 
adhering to existing treaties, had sent no assistance to their 
Melian kinsmen; but still a number of otherwise trifling oc¬ 
currences foreboded more important events. 

18. The desire to establish themselves in the western seas, 
and to gain possession of Sicily, had long since been 
awakened in the Athenian people and its demagogic leaders 
after the death of Pericles. The first attempt to realise this 
desire had been made some years before, during the war 
between Leontini and Syracuse; but the peace of Gela had 
checked their designs for a time. The Athenians were now in 
a state of mind when anything grand and adventurous had a 
particular charm for them, and not being willing to be the 
first to break the peace with Sparta, they eagerly listened to 
the advice of Alcibiades and other men of the war party. 
Their opponents were as anxious to maintain peace at any 
pri<^e. Under these circumstances, ambassadors from Egesta 
in Sicily appeared at Athens, b. c. 416, soliciting aid 
against the neighbouring town of Selinus, and promising to 


272 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


support the Athenians with large sums of money against their 
enemies, especially the Syracusans. Athenian envoys were 
forthwith sent to Sicily to look into the state of affairs there. 
On their return in the spring of b. c. 415, they brought with 
them sixty talents, and gave the most rapturous description 
of the wealth of Egesta. The Athenians forthwith decreed 
to send out a fleet under the command of Alcibiades, Nicias, 
and Lamachus, the first of whom thus saw the realisation 
of his most ardent wishes. Nicias was in his heart opposed 
to the undertaking, but his warnings were not listened to. 
Every effort was made to send out an expedition worthy of 
the name of Athens, and as the peace party were unable to 
prevent the undertaking, they devised a scheme by which they 
intended to ruin Alcibiades; but in doing this they deprived 
themselves of the only man capable of conducting the enter¬ 
prise to a glorious end, and brought the greatest calamity 
upon their country. 

19. When the fleet was in the port ready to sail, it 
happened that one morning nearly all the numerous busts 
of Hermes which adorned the streets of Athens w^ere found 
mutilated. This act of wantonness on so large a scale filled 
the minds of the Athenians with alarm; it was believed that 
it was the work of a conspiracy against the constitution, and 
great rewards were offered to any one who could give infor¬ 
mation about the perpetrators. Informers of all ranks came 
forward, and those who were denounced thought it safest 
during the general excitement to take to flight; but they were 
sentenced to death, and their property confiscated. No ancient 
writer has given an explanation of this mysterious affair, but 
it seems probable that it was a scheme devised by the peace 
party, in conjunction with the personal enemies and rivals of 
Alcibiades, for the purpose of getting rid of him. His name 
however was not mentioned by any of the informers, until the 
expedition had actually sailed. The splendid armament 


THE SICILIAN EXPEDITIONS. 


273 


which left the port of Piraeus consisted of one hundred and 
thirty-four galleys, five thousand one hundred heavy-armed 
men, four hundred and eighty bowmen, and seven hundred 
slingers; and the fleet was accompanied by thirty transports 
and one hundred boats. Upon this magnificent force Athens 
rested her boldest hopes. It first sailed to iEgina and thence 
to Corcyra, where it was to meet the contingents of the allies. 

20. The fleet sailed from Corcyra to the south of Italy, 
and halted at Rhegium, while three ships sailed to Egesta 
to reconnoitre. When these ships returned, they brought the 
discouraging news that thirty talents was all the money they 
had been able to obtain, and that Egesta was far from being 
the wealthy town which it had been represented to be. But 
Alcibiades and Lamachus were nevertheless determined to 
proceed, and not only to assist the Egestaeans, but to gain as 
many allies as possible, and make a vigorous attack upon 
Syracuse. This plan being finally adopted, several Sicilian 
towns were taken, and the fleet appeared before Syracuse. 
At this moment an Athenian state-vessel arrived to recall 
Alcibiades from the command of the army, and to take him 
back to Athens to defend himself against the charges which 
his enemies had in the meantime brought forward. Alci¬ 
biades departed without remonstrance from Sicily in his own 
galley, accompanied by the Athenian state-vessel. But when 
lie approached Thurii, he landed and made his escape. Soon 
afterwards he crossed over to Peloponnesus ; but the Athenians 
not only condemned him to death, but confiscated his property, 
and pronounced an awful curse against him. When Alci¬ 
biades was gone, the soul of the Sicilian expedition was lost; 
the war was carried on in a slow and tedious manner, and 
the Syracusans seeing the enemy engaged in distant parts of 
the^island soon recovered from their first fright. Thus things 
went on until the winter set in, and then the Athenians 

resolved upon besieging Syracuse. Guided by a treacherous 

T 


274 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Syracusan, they effected a landing at a point called Olympieum 
on the south-west side of the city, where they pitched their 
camp in a very favourable position. The Syracusans came 
out, and a battle was fought at once, in which they were 
saved only by their cavalry. As, however, it was winter, 
the Athenians, without making any further attempts, with¬ 
drew to Catana, which had joined their alliance. 

21. Hermocrates, still the soul of the councils at Syracuse, 
did all he could to train and cheer his fellow-citizens for the 
contest, and sent envoys to Sparta and Corinth for succours. 
The Athenian armament also was expecting reinforcements from 
Athens. The Syracusans extended their city for the purpose 
of rendering a blockade difficult, and endeavoured to increase 
the number of their allies. Their example was followed by 
the Athenians, who sent round envoys to the towns of Sicily, 
and even to Carthage and the Tyrrhenians. The Greek 
towns in Sicily were lukewarm in their support of Syracuse, 
but assistance came from a quarter from which they had least 
expected it. Alcibiades had gone to Sparta, where he was 
received with great honours. While he was staying there, 
the Syracusan envoys, accompanied by others from Corinth, 
arrived, for the Corinthians were quite willing to support their 
kinsmen in Sicily. Alcibiades strongly advised the Spartans 
to send a large force and an able general to Syracuse, and 
establish themselves at the same time at Decelea in Attica; 
and his advice was at once acted upon. Gylippus, one of 
their ablest men, was sent with a small force to Syracuse, 
and further assistance was promised. 

22. In the spring of b. c. 414, the Athenians renewed 
the siege of Syracuse, but a long time elapsed before the city 
could be invested. The first conflict occurred at the heights 
called Epipolae, where the Syracusans were defeated. The 
Athenians then advanced against the quarter of the city 
called Tyche, and began the work of circumvallation. Vari- 


SIEGE OF SYRACUSE. 


275 


ous engagements took place in which the Syracusans were 
worsted, but in one of them Lamachus was killed, and this 
somewhat encouraged them. The Athenian fleet in the 
meantime had entered the great harbour of Syracuse, and 
the whole army of the besieged threw itself into the city, 
which was now wholly blockaded. The despondency in Syra¬ 
cuse was so great, that the people began to think of peace, 
and deposed Hermocrates, their best and most patriotic adviser. 
The Athenians, on the other hand, were now joined by many 
of the Sicilian towns, and even by some of the Tyrrhenians ; 
the army, now commanded by Nicias alone, was filled with 
hopes of victory. Under these circumstances Gylippus arrived 
and landed near Himera, on the north coast of Sicily. His 
mere arrival inspired the Dorian towns with fresh confidence 
and the hope of a vigorous support from Sparta, and numbers 
flocked to his standard. The Syracusans also felt their spirits 
reviving, and banished all thoughts of peace from their minds. 
Gylippus succeeded in gaining the heights of Epipolae, and 
being joined by the Syracusans, attacked the fortifications 
of the Athenians, which were nearly completed. 

23. The arrival of Gylippus completely changed the 
aspect of affairs. The Athenians were not only prevented 
from completing their fortifications, but lost their stores, and 
it was evident that their operations by land would not lead to 
the desired issue. Gylippus devoted all his attention to the 
safety of the city and the training of his troops. The suc¬ 
cess which he met with in this respect, and in some skirmishes 
with the Athenians, induced both the natives of Sicily and the 
Greek towns to embrace the cause of Syracuse, while the 
Athenians had scarcely any allies except Naxos and Catana. 
Syracuse, moreover, had received reinforcements from Greece, 
and was expecting more. Nicias was in a most difficult and 
dangerous position, for instead of besieging Syracuse, he him¬ 
self was besieged. He accordingly wrote to Athens for rein- 


276 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


forcements, and desired to be recalled on the ground of his 
ill health. This last request was refused, but Demosthenes 
and Eurymedon, being appointed his colleagues, were sent 
with fresh troops to Sicily. The report of these prepar¬ 
ations induced the Lacedaemonians, in the beginning of b. c. 
413, to invade Attica under the command of Agis, for the 
peace had been openly broken in Greece the year before, 
when Athens, to assist Argos, ravaged some Laconian towns. 
After laying waste some parts of Attica, Agis, as Alcibiades 
had advised, fortified himself at Decelea, whence he was 
enabled to annoy the Athenians by devastating their fields, 
and thus to become a most troublesome enemy. Athens now 
had to carry on war in two quarters; her expenditure was 
increased, while her revenues were diminished, and outward 
misfortunes could not fail to call forth discontent and a revo¬ 
lutionary spirit at home. 

24. Gylippus and Hermocrates prevailed upon the Syra¬ 
cusans to attack the Athenians by sea, before the new com¬ 
manders with their additional forces arrived, and a battle was 
fought at the entrance of the great harbour of Syracuse, in 
which the Athenians were victorious, but when they returned 
to their station on the coast, they found it already occupied 
by the land-army of Gylippus. This emboldened the Syra¬ 
cusans to harass the enemy, who from want of provisions became 
more and more reduced, in every possible way, and they even 
fought a second naval battle, which lasted for several days, and 
in which the Athenians were obliged to retreat. This at once 
destroyed the prestige of the Athenian name, for they had 
until then been believed to be invincible at sea. At this 
critical juncture Demosthenes and Eurymedon arrived with 
strong reinforcements. They were larger than the Syracusans 
had anticipated, and created great alarm among them, while 
the hopes of the Athenians revived. Demosthenes, impatient 
of delay, resolved to recover Epipolae, and in a nocturnal and 


LOSSES OP THE ATHENIANS. 


277 


unexpected attack, he was at first very successful; but various 
circumstances then combined to throw the Athenian forces 
into confusion, and they were completely defeated; great 
numbers were cut to pieces in the darkness of the night, 
and the rest escaped to the camp. The Athenian generals 
were disheartened by this misfortune, which was aggravated 
by disease among the troops. Demosthenes even went so far 
as to propose to give up Sicily altogether. Nicias had the 
same feeling, but he was also aware of the dangers connected 
with a withdrawal. At length, however, he gave "way, and 
it was agreed that the Athenian forces should withdraw in 
secret, without the knowledge of the enemy. But an eclipse 
of the moon made so strong an impression upon their excited 
and superstitious minds, that the departure was deferred. In 
the meantime the Syracusans, having received reinforcements 
and information about the design of the Athenians, advanced 
at once with seventy-six galleys against the naval station of 
the Athenians, whilst the land army marched against their 
fortifications. The Athenian fleet, consisting of eighty-seven 
ships, was completely defeated, Eurymedon’s retreat was cut 
off, and he himself was slain. The ships which made their 
escape gallantly resisted a subsequent attack of Gylippus and 
repelled the enemy. But the loss of the Athenians was very 
great, and the spirits of the Syracusans were raised to such a 
pitch that they aimed at nothing short of annihilating the 
army of their opponents. 

25. Meantime they made preparations for another great 
sea-fight; the Athenians knowing that the decisive moment 
was approaching, made their arrangements accordingly. All 
the fleet, amounting to one hundred and ten vessels, was soon 
made ready for the contest, but Gylippus, who knew all the 
energy’s plans, contrived to neutralise them. Nicias remained 
with the land-army, which was drawn up on the coast. 
When the naval engagement commenced, the contest was 


278 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


carried on with the greatest exasperation on both sides. At 
length the Athenians retreated towards the coast, and the 
land army broke up in utter confusion, and most of the men 
fled in terror. Nearly half their fleet was destroyed; 
everything was neglected, and all they thought of was flight. 
The fleet was abandoned, and it was agreed to retreat by 
land to some place of safety. The Syracusans, on being 
informed of this, occupied all the roads and passes. The 
Athenian army, when commencing its retreat, still amounted 
to forty thousand men. The sick, the wounded, and the 
dying were left behind. Nicias commanded the van, and 
Demosthenes the rear. Throughout their march they were 
harassed by the Syracusans, who after some days forced 
them to prepare for battle in a narrow position. When 
the fight had lasted for some time, Demosthenes and his 
troops were summoned to surrender their arms, on condi¬ 
tion that none should suffer a violent death. The demand 
was complied with by all, six thousand in number. On the 
following day Nicias also was overtaken by Gylippus, and 
heard of the fate of his colleague; but not believing it, he 
refused to listen to any proposals, and continued his march 
amid the most extraordinary difficulties, until in the end he 
was obliged to surrender at discretion. The Athenian army 
had by this time been greatly reduced ; the captives, amounting 
to seven thousand, were sent into the quarries near Syracuse, 
and their treatment was inhumanly cruel, for they lived crowded 
together in a pestilential atmosphere, and their scanty food only 
increased their torments. After spending seventy days in that 
fearful dungeon, in the midst of the corpses of their fellow- 
soldiers, the survivors, except the Athenians and the Sicilian 
and Italian Greeks, were sold as slaves. Nicias and Demosthenes, 
notwithstanding the promises of Gylippus, were put to death. 
Thus ended an undertaking which, in the opinion of Thucy¬ 
dides, was the greatest, not only in the Peloponnesian war, 


GREAT DISASTER IN SICILY. 


279 


but in any war that had ever been carried on. The loss of 
the Athenians was fearful, and far greater than any they had 
yet sustained. The heartless cruelty displayed by the Syra¬ 
cusans on that occasion must ever be held in the greatest 
detestation. 

26. The blow which Athens had received was fatal, and 
forms the beginning of her gradual decline. The news on reach¬ 
ing Athens was at first disbelieved, but when at length it was 
found to be but too true, the people became desponding and 
disheartened, and vented their feelings against those who had 
induced them to send out the expedition. But the depression 
did not last; the Athenians soon roused themselves, and 
resolved to continue the war, and preserve the power they still 
possessed.. The Spartans, by a bold stroke, might have put 
an end to the war; but the moment for action was neglected, 
and the war continued nine years longer—a period commonly 
called the Decelean war, because the Spartans retained pos¬ 
session of Decelea in the very heart of Attica, though the 
principal seats of the war were the sea and the coast of Asia 
Minor; for through the Sicilian expedition Sparta had become 
a maritime power, which rose to its height under the command 
of Lysander. The allies of Athens, now thinking her too 
weak to make any great effort, commenced negotiations with 
Agis about their revolt. The first that came forward were 
Euboea and Lesbos; the Persian satraps of Western Asia 
also sent envoys to Sparta, to gain her over to the interests 
of Persia, and to deprive Athens of her possessions in Asia 
Minor and on the Hellespont. The Spartans were ready with 
their promises, but it was not till b. c. 412 that anything 
was done. Alcibiades, who had urged the Spartans on, was 
then sent with five ships, commanded by Chalcideus, to Chios, 
and induced the people to renounce the alliance with Athens. 
Erythrae and Clazomenae soon followed the example. The 
Athenians sent out two squadrons to pursue the Lacedaemo- 


280 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


nians, and prevent the spreading of the revolt; but they were 
unable to check the skilful management of Alcibiades; and 
while he was pursuing his successful undertaking, a treaty 
was concluded between the king of Persia and Sparta, in 
which the Greek towns in Asia were delivered up to the 
barbarians. 

27. The Chians, though put to flight by an Athenian 
fleet, tried to induce as many as possible to join the revolt, 
but the Athenians having gradually assembled a large force 
in those parts, compelled most of the revolted towns to return to 
their allegiance, and the Spartan admiral, Chalcideus, was slain 
near Miletus. Chios was laid waste, and the islanders were 
beaten in several engagements. Late in the summer of b. c. 
412, a large Athenian reinforcement, commanded by Phryni- 
chus and others, arrived at Samos, and forthwith proceeded 
to attack Miletus. A battle was fought, in which Tissaphernes 
and Alcibiades took part, but no decisive victory was gained 
by either party, when suddenly an auxiliary fleet arrived from 
Syracuse. Phrynichus, therefore, wisely retreated to Samos, 
and his allies, the Argives, being dissatisfied with this move¬ 
ment, returned home. The Spartans thus remained in 
possession of Miletus, and also gained over some other places ; 
but at sea the Athenians remained, on the whole, in the 
ascendancy. Tissaphernes became dissatisfied with the conduct 
of the Spartans, and Alcibiades, who had for some time been 
suspected by them, and had incurred the hatred of their king 
Agis, now went over to him, and persuaded him to reduce the 
support which till then he had given to the Spartans, showing 
him that it was for the interest of Persia to allow Sparta and 
Athens to weaken each other. The advice was adopted by 
Tissaphernes, and caused no small loss to the Spartans. 

28. But Alcibiades had not intended to benefit the king 
of Persia more than Athens and himself, for he had only 
wished to weaken his countrymen so far as to induce them 


REVOLUTION AT ATHENS. 


281 


to recal him from exile. At the same time he had thrown 
out several hints to the Athenians at Samos, such as, that 
he would gain over Tissaphernes to their side; that he was 
willing to return to Athens if an oligarchical government 
were instituted, and the like. The Athenians at Samos, and 
especially the nobles, were taken with the scheme. Phryni- 
chus alone set himself against it; but it was without avail. 
Pisander went to Athens with the proposals of Alcibiades, 
and Tissaphernes was induced at once to side with the 
Athenians. Pisander met a stronger opposition at Athens 
than he had anticipated; but he persevered, and at last the 
people yielded. Pisander and ten envoys were then sent to 
Alcibiades and Tissaphernes. Immediately on their arrival, 
they made,Cos their head-quarters for the negotiation. But 
the demands of Alcibiades were so exorbitant, that the Athenian 
commissioners broke off all negotiation, and returned to 
Samos. At Athens, however, the promoters of the scheme 
had been very active, and at the beginning of b. c. 411, the 
oligarchical government was established. In many of the 
allied states the same change w T as successfully accomplished. 
The leaders of the revolution at Athens, with Pisander at their 
head, prevailed upon the people to elect ten men with unlimited 
power, who were to prepare a series of new laws. A body 
of four hundred men v T as then elected, and the franchise 
limited to five thousand citizens, all others being deprived of it. 
The council of Four Hundred had almost unlimited power. 
The chief promoters of this oligarchical scheme were Pisander, 
the orator Antiphon, and Theramenes. All the thoughts of 
the new government were directed towards a speedy conclusion 
of peace with Sparta. At the same time deputies were sent 
to Samos to gain over the army to the new order of things. 
But the popular party in Samos itself, and the Athenian 
generals, among whom was Thrasybulus, defended the rights 
of the people. The Samian oligarchs were overpowered by 


282 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the people, and when the Athenian army was informed of the 
tyrannical and cruel proceedings of the oligarchs at home, both 
the fleet and the army bound themselves by an oath to main¬ 
tain the old democratic constitution, and, in case of need, even 
to renounce Athens, and seek a new home elsewhere. 

29. During the time of these disturbances in Samos and 
at Athens, the Peloponnesians remained inactive and wasted 
their time, and the support they had expected from Persia 
did not come. But still the Athenians sustained many losses, 
for Abydos, Lampsacos, Thasos, Byzantium, and many other 
towns revolted, and even Euboea, which was of the greatest 
importance to Athens, was lost. Things, however, were pre¬ 
paring which were to be ample compensation for these reverses. 
For Thrasybulus had at length prevailed upon the army in 
Samos to recal Alcibiades. When he arrived, he made a 
great display of his patriotism and his influence with Tissa- 
phernes, and the soldiers elected him their commander along 
with Thrasybulus and Thrasyllus. He now tried to inspire 
Tissaphernes with the most exaggerated notions of his new 
position and power, for the satrap had not yet made up his 
mind openly to support the Athenians and break with the 
Spartans, whose fleet was now commanded by Mindarus. In 
the meantime envoys from Athens arrived at Samos and endea¬ 
voured to exculpate and justify the oligarchic rulers of Athens. 
But the soldiers would not listen to them, and had it not been 
for the moderation of Alcibiades they would have returned 
home at once to re-establish the democratic form of govern¬ 
ment. This change, however, was not brought about by the 
army, but by the quarrels and disputes among the leaders of 
the oligarchy itself; and it was more particularly Theramenes 
who placed himself at the head of a counter-revolution. But 
many other Athenians also suspected that the oligarchs were 
secretly plotting with the Spartans; and when a Lacedaemo¬ 
nian fleet actually appeared off the coast of Attica, the people 


SUCCESSES OF ALCIBIADES. 


283 


rushed to their ships and fought a battle in which they lost 
twenty-two galleys, and Euboea was taken by the enemy. 
For a moment this loss filled the people with despair, but they 
soon recovered, and in the assembly which was immediately 
summoned, the Four Hundred were deposed, and many other 
useful measures were carried with great moderation. Envoys 
were forthwith despatched to Samos to recal Alcibiades. Pis- 
ander and some of his friends took refuge among the Lacedae¬ 
monians at Decelea. 

30. Mindarus, the Spartan admiral, growing at length 
tired of waiting in vain for reinforcements from Tissaphernes, 
contrived to elude the vigilance of the Athenians and sailed 
to the Hellespont, where he hoped to succeed better with 
Pharnabazus. But the Athenian fleet followed the enemy, 
and near Cynossema gained a great victory, which, though 
dearly purchased, roused their courage and confidence. A 
second great naval battle was fought near Abydos, in which 
the appearance of Alcibiades decided the victory. Tissaphernes 
had by this time come to the Hellespont, and as Alcibiades 
was trying finally to win him over to the side of Athens, the 
satrap seized him and sent him as a prisoner to Sardes, on the 
ground that the king wished to continue the war against 
Athens. About a month later, however, Alcibiades made his 
escape and returning to the fleet, he determined to fight a 
decisive battle against Mindarus. He accordingly sailed to 
Cyzicus, and coming unexpectedly upon the enemy he drove 
them on shore and an engagement ensued on land in 
which Mindarus fell. The army fled, and the entire fleet 
became the prize of the Athenians. These events occurred 
in b. c. 410. The condition of the Peloponnesians after this 
defeat was quite hopeless, while the Athenians advanced 
unchecked in their victorious career, and recovered all that 
was lost on the Hellespont. In Attica also the Athenians 
successfully repelled an attack made by Agis from Decelea, 


284 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


in which he sustained great loss. Thrasyllus, who had gained 
this victory easily, obtained large reinforcements with which 
he sailed towards the west coast of Asia, and finally joined 
the fleet at Sestos, which continued the contest against 
Pharnabazus. 

31. In the beginning of b. c. 409, Alcibiades besieged 
Chalcedon and compelled it to surrender. Byzantium was 
delivered up to the Athenians by traitors, and Pharnabazus 
concluded a treaty with them, in which he promised them 
twenty talents. This treaty, however, was never ratified by 
the king, who continued to side with Sparta, and sent his son 
Cyrus as commander of his forces in Asia Minor, with orders 
to support the cause of the Peloponnesians. These things 
happened in the beginning of the year b. c. 408, and the time 
had now come for Alcibiades to return to his country as the 
victorious and admired conqueror of its enemies. His reception 
at Athens was enthusiastic—every charge which had been 
brought against him was forgotten, and for a time he was the 
darling of the people. He had been in Athens scarcely three 
months, when he was made commander of a fleet of one hun¬ 
dred galleys, and sailed against Andros which had revolted 
from Athens. But he was unable to reduce the island, and 
this furnished his enemies with a fresh handle against him, 
for the people of Athens had such an exalted opinion of him 
as to believe that he could accomplish every thing, and conse¬ 
quently to regard any failure as owing to his want of good will. 

32. The Peloponnesians too were now commanded by a 
great general, Lysander, the successor of Mindarus, and a 
worthy adversary of Alcibiades. He was then waiting at 
Ephesus for the arrival of Cyrus, who was a zealous friend of 
the Spartans, partly from hatred of Tissaphernes, and partly 
from a hope to be assisted by the land forces of the Spartans 
in his own undertakings. Lysander’s fleet had been increased 
to ninety ships, and Antiochus, one of the officers of Alcibiades, 


BATTLE OF ARGINUSAE. 


285 


although forbidden by his commander to attack Lysander, 
sailed into the harbour of Ephesus to challenge the enemy. 
The general engagement which arose out of this, ended unfortu¬ 
nately for the Athenians, who lost seventeen ships. Alcibiades 
was unable to repair the loss, and returned to Samos. There 
the army, ascribing the discomfiture to his carelessness, was so 
indignant as todepose him, and appoint ten generals in his stead, 
b. c. 407. Alcibiades, knowing the fickleness of his country¬ 
men, went as a voluntary exile to Chersonesus, and never 
saw his country again. Three years later he showed that his 
patriotism was undiminished ; after the downfall of Athens he 
went to the satrap Pharnabazus, who abandoned him to the 
implacable hatred of the Spartans. Conon, the ablest among 
the successors of Alcibiades, remained at the head of his 
forces about Samos. In b. c. 406, Lysander was succeeded 
by Callicratidas, a young hero of a disposition similar to that 
of Brasidas ; he took Methymna in Lesbos by storm, put 
Conon to flight, and compelled him to engage in a fight in 
which the Athenians lost thirty ships. The Athenians, on 
hearing of this and other reverses, equipped with the utmost 
speed a fleet of one hundred and ten sail, which was increased 
at Samos to one hundred and fifty. Near the group of islands 
called Arginusae, this armament was attacked by Callicratidas. 
The young Spartan hero fell in the battle, and the victory 
was gained by the Athenians. The Lacedaemonians lost 
upwards of seventy ships. Immediately after the battle a 
storm arose which rendered it impossible for the Athenian 
generals to collect the wrecks, the shipwrecked, and the 
corpses. This apparent neglect was seized upon at Athens 
by their enemies, and the generals were summoned to return 
and take their trial. Six of them obeyed the command, and 
went to their own destruction, for the people, goaded on 
by its democratic leaders, condemned them all to death. 
Theramenes, who was one of the generals, acted the part 


286 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


of an accuser of liis colleagues to save himself, and Socrates 
was one of the few who condemned the proceedings as 
unjust. But the eyes of the people were soon after opened, 
and its evil advisers had to pay for their crime with their 
lives. 

33. After the death of Callicratidas, Lysander was again 
placed at the head of the Peloponnesian forces, and in 
b. c. 405 he joined the fleet at Ephesus, with reinforcements 
and subsidies from various quarters, especially from young 
Cyrus, who was then plotting against his brother Artaxerxes. 
Soon afterwards Lysander sailed towards the Hellespont and 
took Lampsacos. He was followed by the Athenian fleet, 
which took its station at iEgospotami, opposite to Lampsacos, 
in a position where the men had to leave their ships in order 
to obtain provisions. Alcibiades, who was living in the 
neighbourhood, cautioned his countrymen, but his advice was 
scorned. After some days, when the Athenians had been 
lulled into security, and were as usual scattered on the shore, 
Lysander attacked them. Conon, seeing the impossibility of 
gathering his forces, fled with a few ships ; all the remainder 
were captured, and the crews were cut to pieces on shore or 
taken prisoners. Conon escaped to Evagoras in Cyprus, 
but two of his colleagues were put to death at Lamp¬ 
sacos. Lysander now proceeded to subdue the allies of 
Athens one after another, but sent the garrisons of the cities 
to Athens, where he hoped by this means to create want and 
famine. At the same time all the Peloponnesian land forces 
assembled in Attica, and encamped close to the gates of the 
city ; and Lysander, who approached with his fleet, ravaged 
Salamis, and appeared before Piraeus. Athens was thus 
attacked by land and by sea ; but although the people were 
without means of defending themselves, they yet refused to 
surrender at once, for they knew the fate that was awaiting 
them. When at length famine had reached a fearful height, 


END OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR. 


287 


they offered to treat with the Spartans, if they would promise 
to spare the city and the long walls. They were referred to 
the ephors at Sparta, but finding that nogotiation was im¬ 
possible with the exasperated enemy, they were obliged to 
submit on the following terms :—that the long walls and the 
fortifications of Piraeus should be pulled down ; that all 
ships, with the exception of twelve, should be delivered up ; 
that all the exiles of the oligarchical party should be recalled ; 
that henceforth Athens and Sparta should have the same friends 
and the same enemies; and lastly, that Athens should recog¬ 
nise the supremacy of Sparta both by land and by sea, and 
that all her allies should be restored to independence. Thera- 
menes, who had acted a very equivocal part in obtaining this 
peace, advised the desponding people to accept it. All the 
terms were at once complied with, and Lysander, having 
entered Piraeus, commenced the work of demolition, b. c. 404. 
Thus ended the Peloponnesian war, which had lasted for 
twenty-seven years, and in which more Hellenic blood had 
been shed than in all the previous wars together. 


CHAPTER IX. 

FROM THE CLOSE OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR TO THE PEACE 

OF ANTALCIDAS. 

1. As soon as the fortifications were demolished, the 
people of Athens, by command of Lysander, elected thirty 
men, commonly called the Thirty Tyrants, who were to rule 
the state according to a constitution to be newly framed. 
The most conspicuous among them was Critias, but Thera- 
menes also was one of the Thirty. When the election was 



288 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


completed, the Peloponnesian army and fleet departed. But 
Lysander, before disbanding his fleet, sailed to Samos, where 
he likewise instituted an oligarchy, and then returned home 
with immense booty and the tribute he had levied on the 
former allies of Athens. The Thirty at first directed their 
rigour chiefly against the leading demagogues; this rule, 
however, was soon forgotten, or made a mere pretext for get¬ 
ting rid of the noblest and wealthiest men, to satisfy the 
avarice and cupidity of the tyrants. But the number of exiles 
was greater than that of those who were put to death. The 
reckless cruelty of the tyrants knew no bounds. They were 
assisted in their deeds of blood by a band of mercenaries sent 
by Lysander. From among the citizens three thousand were 
selected, who alone were to have the franchise, and to be 
permitted to bear arms. All the rest were placed beyond 
the protection of the law, and their lives depended upon the 
pleasure of the Thirty. About one thousand four hundred 
Athenians fell victims to the blood-thirsty oligarchs during 
that fearful year, called in Greek history the year of anarchy, 
and five thousand emigrated, leaving behind all that they 
possessed. The rule of terror was so great, that even cities 
hostile to Athens took pity upon the unfortunate exiles. 
Theramenes in the end also began to feel that he could not 
co-operate with his colleagues, and remonstrated with Critias, 
in return for which Critias charged him with treason, effaced 
his name from the list of citizens, and thereby declared him 
an outlaw. He was thrown into prison, and had to drink the 
deadly hemlock. He submitted cheerfully to his fate, and 
thus in a measure atoned for the offences of his more than 
equivocal life. 

2. But the more reckless the tyrants became, the more 
they accelerated the day of retribution. One of the exiles 
was Thrasybulus, who had so often signalised himself during 
the war. He had at first gone to Thebes, but being joined 


RESTORATION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 


289 


by a band of seventy fellow-exiles, be bad taken possession 
of tbe small fort of Pbyle, in tbe north of Attica. Tbe 
Thirty, unable to dislodge him, stationed a small corps in 
tbe neighbourhood to watch his proceedings. The number 
of exiles flocking to him soon increased to seven hundred, 
with whom he put the enemy to flight, and then proceeded 
to Piraeus. The Thirty, feeling unsafe at Athens, murdered 
three hundred horsemen whom they suspected of favouring 
the exiles. A battle was then fought in the streets of Piraeus, 
in which the exiles gained the victory. Critias himself fell, and 
many of his followers. The conquerors behaved with exem¬ 
plary moderation, and the vanquished retreated to the city, 
from which the survivors of the Thirty withdrew to Eleusis. 
Their partizans at Athens endeavoured to make a compro¬ 
mise ; but failing in this, both they and the Thirty sent to 
Sparta for assistance. Lysander accordingly came with an 
army, and his brother blockaded Piraeus with a fleet. The 
Spartan king Pausanias, however, being jealous of the exploits 
of Lysander, advanced with another army, but was anxious 
to save Athens, and to restore peace. An understanding was 
easily come to, and a general amnesty was proclaimed by 
Thrasybulns, from which the Thirty and their official tools 
alone were exempted. Thrasybulns then marched up into 
the city, advising his fellow-citizens to maintain peace and 
union, and to return to their old constitution. The advice was 
strictly followed ; but when it became known that the Thirty 
at Eleusis were making preparations for a fresh struggle, 
the people marched out in a body, and inflicted summary 
punishment upon them. Their followers, however, and even 
their children, were pardoned and allowed to avail themselves 
of the general amnesty. Such was the end of the tyranny 
of the Thirty in b. c. 403. The ancient constitution was 
restored, and a commission of five hundred men appointed 
to revise the laws and put them together in the form of a code. 

u 


290 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


3. Athens, which at the beginning of the Peloponnesian 
war had been at the head of a powerful empire, had now, 
according to all appearance, sunk down to the rank of a 
second-rate state, but nevertheless, as throughout the war it had 
been the place in which the greatest interest was centred, so it 
remained, even after its great reverses, a state possessing more 
vitality than any other. Its intellectual vigour and activity 
were progressing as actively as if the late calamities had 
passed by without any disastrous effect, and during the period 
which now followed, Athens was so rich in the productions of 
art and literature, that in some respects she rose higher even 
than in earlier and happier times, though it must be owned 
that fancy and imagination gradually gave way to thought 
and reflection, and that, accordingly, poetry was supplanted 
by learning. The loss of the supremacy of Athens and the 
change in her constitution were only transitory; but the changes 
which were produced by the war on Sparta were of a more 
serious character. Sparta had become a maritime power, 
which was incompatible with the character of its ancient 
laws and institutions, whose object was to make it a powerful 
continental state. One of the consequences of this change 
was, that foreign manners, luxuries, and effeminacy, easily 
found their way into Sparta, although the ancient forms 
continued to be observed most scrupulously; the spirit of the 
constitution and the altered circumstances formed a most 
glaring contrast. In the course of the war, the power of the 
ephors had risen to such a point, that the executive was mainly 
in their hands, and the perpetual quarrels between the two kings 
contributed not a little towards making the ephorate a despotic 
power in the state. The extended intercourse with foreign 
countries rendered the introduction of money among the 
Spartans necessary, and Sparta soon became the richest among 
the Greek states, that is, Spartan citizens were richer than 
those of any other state ; but the wealth was accumulated in 


CONDITION OF ATHENS AND SPARTA. 


291 


a few families, which were thus enabled to exercise an undue 
influence on all public matters. The number of nine thousand 
Spartan citizens mentioned in the tradition about the legis¬ 
lation of Lycurgus was now reduced to seven hundred! of 
these only one hundred were in the enjoyment of all the civic 
rights, and these few lived in proud and haughty seclusion 
from the rest of the population. 

4. Athens came forth from the long struggle outwardly 
humbled, but not internally broken ; and the Athenians then, 
as at all other times, displayed a high degree of skill in 
accommodating themselves to new circumstances, or, in case 
of need, returning to their ancient institutions. The number 
of Athenian citizens was not materially diminished, notwith¬ 
standing all the calamities of the war and the pestilence, for 
they were liberal in bestowing the franchise upon aliens and 
slaves who benefited the state by their commerce and industry. 
The Athenian people were often led by unprincipled dema¬ 
gogues into acts of injustice and cruelty, and were prevailed 
upon by them to squander, on pleasures and amusements, the 
money from the public treasury which ought to have been 
devoted to the public service. Large sums were thus spent 
for the purpose of enabling the poorer citizens to take part in 
the popular courts and the assembly, and to spend a holiday 
in the theatre, or amuse themselves on other festive occasions. 
Such measures, again, created an inordinate love of pleasure 
and idleness. But notwithstanding all this, the mass of the 
people on all occasions displayed a peculiarly noble character; 
they were always more honest, virtuous, and merciful than the 
oligarchical party, which could not sate itself with blood when¬ 
ever circumstances raised it into power. The misfortunes 
which the war and their own party spirit had brought upon 
the Athenians led them, under the wise guidance of Thrasy- 
bulus, to reform their constitution, and make it a moderate 
democracy, which was again placed, as of old, under the 


292 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


superintendence of the Areopagus. For one generation at 
least, the Athenians lived happy under their new, or rather 
their ancient, constitution, and it was not till the time of 
Philip of Macedonia that party animosities appeared again to 
disturb that happiness. 

5. The golden age of Attic art and literature extends 
from the beginning of the Persian wars to the death of Alex¬ 
ander, and accordingly lasted for a period of about two hun¬ 
dred years. During the first of these two centuries poetry and 
art were cultivated with care and enthusiasm, and the drama, 
the highest and most complicated of all poetical productions, 
reached the highest degree of perfection and popularity. The 
latter century is the period in which Attic prose, in oratory 
and philosophy, attained its full development.' The time of 
the Peloponnesian war was the most flourishing season of the 
long golden age, for to it belong Sophocles and Euripides, 
Aristophanes, Thucydides, and Socrates. The last of these 
great men, though he did not write any work himself, has 
been immortalised by his disciples Plato and Xenophon. He 
is truly said to have drawn down philosophy from heaven, and 
to have introduced it into the habitations of men; for before 
his time outward nature alone had been the object of speculation 
and observation with philosophers, whereas he directed atten¬ 
tion to the moral nature of man and his duties to his fellow- 
men. But he had to pay the penalty which almost all the 
great authors of new ideas have to pay. He was accused of 
disregarding the publicly recognised gods, of introducing new 
divinities, and of corrupting the young. He defended himself 
manfully, but disdained to employ any illegal means to obtain 
his acquittal, and when he was condemned to death, he cheer¬ 
fully drank the fatal cup, in b. c. 399, after a long and useful 
life of seventy years. 

6. Ever since the wars with Greece, Persia had become 
weaker and weaker ; and its history consists of a succession of 
revolts in Egypt and other provinces of court intrigues and 


CYRUS THE YOUNGER. 


293 


cruel punishments. Xerxes was murdered in b. c. 465 by 
Artabanus, who occupied the throne only for a period of seven 
months, and was succeeded by Artaxerxes I., surnamed Lon- 
gimanus, from b. c. 465 to 425. His successors, Xerxes II., 
reigned only two months, and Sogdianus seven. The throne 
was then occupied by Darius II., surnamed Nothus, who died 
in b. c. 405, leaving behind him two sons, Cyrus and Arta¬ 
xerxes, surnamed Mnemon, who, being the elder, naturally 
succeeded his father on the throne. Cyrus, as we have 
already seen, had been appointed by his father governor of the 
maritime districts of Asia' Minor, and having formed the plan 
of placing himself on the throne, with the aid of his mother 
Parysatis, he had formed connections with Sparta, and enlisted 
in his service malcontents and exiles from all parts of Greece ; 
for matters had now come to this, that Greeks lent their 
swords and arms for money even to the arch-enemy of their 
own country. Strengthened by such Greeks, and being 
plentifully provided with money, he undertook an expedition 
against his brother, who had already for some years occupied 
his throne ; but only his most intimate friends knew the 
object of the expedition—Cyrus making the army believe that 
he was marching against the rebellious Pisidians. In the 
summer of b. c. 401 he set out from Sardes. At Thapsacus, 
on the Euphrates, the army was informed that they were 
marching against the king of Persia, and the reluctance of 
the soldiers was overcome only by increased pay and liberal 
promises. In the battle of Cunaxa, where Artaxerxes himself 
commanded an army of one million two hundred thousand 
men, Cyrus was slain and the king wounded. The Greek 
mercenaries, however, were unconquered, and offered the 
command to Ariaeus, a friend of Cyrus, who afterwards 
faithlessly deserted them. As they refused to surrender, they 
were under various pretexts drawn into the interior of the 
enemy’s country, where their commanders were put to death. 


294 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Xenophon, to whom we are indebted for a detailed account of 
this memorable enterprise, restored their sinking courage, and 
exhorted them to return home under all circumstances. The 
retreat was then commenced—the Spartan Cheirisophus com¬ 
manding the van and Xenophon the rear. They proceeded 
northward through unknown mountainous countries, and after 
encountering the most untoward difficulties, being pursued by 
Tissaphernes, the Persian satrap, and attacked by the fierce 
and warlike Carduchi, they at length reached the Greek city 
of Trapezus. Their number, which had originally amounted 
to nearly thirteen thousand, was then reduced to eight thousand. 
From Trapezus they proceeded partly along the coast and partly 
by sea to the western coast of the Euxine. Five thousand of 
them there engaged in the service of a Thracian prince, but 
were afterwards recalled to Asia, where hostilities had in the 
meantime broken out between the Spartans and Tissaphernes. 
This retreat of the Greeks is one of the most memorable in 
all military history, and shows the superiority of a small band 
of well disciplined soldiers over hosts of untrained barbarians. 
The whole expedition lasted no more than fifteen months, 
ending in the autumn of b. c. 400. 

7. The death of Cyrus had changed the relation subsisting 
between Sparta and the king of Persia. Tissaphernes, who 
lfad remained faithful to his master during the insurrection of 
Cyrus, was rewarded with the satrapy of Asia Minor; but on 
his return the Greek cities refused to obey him. Many of 
them had during the late war in Greece become subject to 
Persia, and those which were yet free now invoked the assis¬ 
tance of Sparta. Thimbron accordingly was sent with a large 
force into Asia; but though reinforced by the Athenians, as 
Well as by the Asiatic cities, he effected little, and his successor 
Dercyllidas, being personally hostile to Pharnabazus, entered 
into negotiations with Tissaphernes, b. c. 399. By this means 
he gained over many of the iEolian cities, and then went to 


AGESILAUS. 


295 


Ckersonesus to protect the Greek towns there against the in¬ 
roads of the Thracians. The liberation of the Greek cities in 
Asia was carried on vigorously, but at the same time Pharna- 
bazus and Tissaphernes became reconciled, and their united 
forces met the Greeks on the north of the Maeander. No battle, 
however, was fought, and a truce was concluded in b, c. 397, 
to enable both parties to consider the terms of peace proposed 
by Dercyllidas, who demanded the independence of the Greek 
towns. The satraps consented to this, on condition that the 
Greek armies and governors should be withdrawn from them. 

8. While Thimbron and Dercyllidas were engaged on 
the coasts of Asia, the Spartan king Agis was carrying on a 
war against Elis, which lasted for two years, b. c. 399 and 
398, and at the end of which Elis was compelled to demolish 
its fortifications, to recognise the independence of the towns 
in Triphylia, and to enter into an alliance with Sparta. Soon 
after the conclusion of this peace Agis died, and was succeeded 
by his brother Agesilaus, the most intelligent ruler in the whole 
history of Sparta, b. c. 398. In the very beginning of his reign 
a conspiracy of the poor, headed by one Cinadon, was formed 
against the few wealthy Spartans. It was thwarted solely 
by the prudence and circumspection of Agesilaus, but the 
causes which had led to it were not removed, and the evil 
continued to increase. Soon after this, information was received 
at Sparta of fresh preparations of Persia against the Greeks, 
and Agesilaus, accompanied by Lysander, set out with a large 
force for Asia, and arrived at Ephesus. Tissaphernes, not 
yet feeling sufficiently prepared, concluded a truce with 
Agesilaus, promising to ask for the king’s sanction to the 
independence of the Greek cities; but his real object was to 
gain time and to collect his forces. Lysander, whose ambition 
became offensive to Agesilaus, was sent to the Hellespont. 
When at length Tissaphernes threw aside the mask, Agesilaus 
also obtained reinforcements and marched into Phrygia, a por- 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


296 

tion of which he laid waste ; hut nothing of importance was 
achieved. During a second invasion, a battle was fought in 
the neighbourhood of Sardes, in which Agesilaus gained a 
complete victory. In consequence of this, Tissaphemes was 
deposed, and his successor Tithraustes put him to death. 
The new satrap then concluded a truce with the Spartan 
king, and by a large bribe induced him to direct his arms 
against Pharnabazus. Agesilaus was also commander-in-chief 
of the Spartan navy, which was furnished by the Asiatic 
cities, and amounted to One hundred and twenty galleys, but 
he transferred this office to Pisander, his wife’s brother, a bold 
but inexperienced man, b. c. 395. Agesilaus was very suc¬ 
cessful in his operations against Pharnabazus, and advanced 
so far into the interior, that he began making preparations 
for an expedition into the heart of the Persian empire. But 
this plan Was not carried into effect, for in the midst of his 
preparations he was summoned to return to Greece, b. c. 394* 
9. During the successful enterprises of Agesilaus in Asia, 
Tithraustes had contrived, by means of Persian gold, to stir 
up the Greeks against Sparta, in the hope that this might 
be the means of getting rid of so dangerous an enemy as 
Agesilaus. The plan succeeded, and Thebes, Corinth, Argos, 
and Athens, formed a league against Sparta, which had 
rendered itself odious to all the Greeks, because its harmosts, 
or governors of cities, everywhere acted like tyrants, although 
the Spartans boasted of being the deliverers of Greece from 
the tyranny of Athens. Hostilities were commenced between 
the Locrians and the PhocianS, the former of whom were 
supported by Thebes, while the latter applied to Sparta 
for assistance. A Spartan army, commanded by Lysander, 
proceeded to the scene of the War, and on its passage through 
Boeotia made an attack upon Haliartos, b. c. 395. The 
Thebans came to the rescue of the town, and Lysander was 
slain. This was the first battle in the war commonly called 


THE CORINTHIAN WAR. 


297 


the Boeotian or Corinthian war. Soon after the battle, the 
Spartan king Pansanias also arrived, hut on finding what had 
happened, he retreated—a step which brought upon him a 
capital charge, and obliged him to spend the remainder of 
his life in exile at Tegea. The confederates now held a 
congress at Corinth to deliberate about the future manage¬ 
ment of the war ; and the alliance was readily joined by the 
Euboeans, Leucadians, Acarnanians, Ambracians, and Chal- 
cidians. Several important places were wrested from Sparta, 
or induced to revolt. While the power of Sparta was thus 
sinking in Greece, the king of Persia intrusted Conon, an 
able Athenian exile, with unlimited powei* to equip a fleet 
against her. It was at this moment that Agesilaus was 
ordered to return home from Asia. He obeyed with a heavy 
heart, and in thirty days reached Greece by the same road 
which Xerxes had once traversed. Before his arrival in 
Boeotia the war had already broken out. The Corinthians 
and theij allies, preventing the Spartan army from march¬ 
ing northward, were assembled at Nemea, and a battle was 
fought there in which the Spartans gained the victory. 
Agesilaus, having received information of it at Amphipolis, 
continued his march southward amidst great difficulties. 
Late in the summer of b. c. 394 he reached Boeotia, and there 
was met by the distressing news of the entire defeat of the 
fleet, and the death of Lysander. This defeat had been 
sustained off Cnidos, and its consequences were of immense 
advantage to the reviving power of Athens. A few days 
later a battle was fought between Agesilaus and the con¬ 
federates on the banks of the Cephissus, in the plain of 
Coroneia. The contest was carried on with rage and hatred, 
each party being bent upon destroying the other; but in the 
end Agesilaus was victorious, and having dedicated to the 
Delphic god one hundred talents of the booty made in Asia, 
he went home and disbanded his army. 

10. After this the war was continued by means of ravag- 


298 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


ing incursions into the territory of Corinth, where the exasper¬ 
ation rose to such a pitch that all who were known to wish for 
peace were massacred. But a few who had escaped opened the 
gates of Lechaeon, the Corinthian port-town, to the Lacedae¬ 
monians, who forthwith demolished a part of its walls, b. c. 393. 
The war continued to he carried on in the Corinthian territory, 
but Corinth, with the aid of the Athenian Iphicrates and his pel- 
tasts, maintained itself successfully against the Spartans under 
Agesilaus, and even recovered several pi aces which had been lost. 
In the meantime, the Greek cities in Asia Minor were delivered 
from their Spartan governors, and joined Pharnabazus and 
Conon, both of whom in the spring of b. c. 393 sailed with a 
fleet to the coast of Laconia, spreading devastation wherever 
they landed, and making themselves masters of Cythera. 
Pharnabazus supplied the Greeks with subsidies against 
Sparta, and even consented to Conon’s plan to rebuild the 
walls of Athens. The work of restoration was carried on 
with such vigour, that in the spring of b. c. 392 it was com¬ 
pleted. The maritime power of Sparta was at an end, and 
Athens was fast recovering her former supremacy. But the 
Spartans resolved to neutralize the influence of Conon, or, if 
possible, to ruin him by intrigues. The crafty Antalcidas 
accordingly was sent to propose terms of peace to Tiribazus, 
a Persian satrap, by which the Asiatic cities were to be sacri¬ 
ficed to the king of Persia; but the islands and the cities in 
Greece were to be free and independent. The satrap was 
pleased with the scheme, though it was opposed by Conon and 
other envoys, who had likewise gone to Asia. In order to 
enable the Spartans to compel the other Greek states to yield, 
Tiribazus advanced them money to build a fleet, and Conon 
was taken prisoner by the Persians. He made his escape soon 
after, but took no further part in the war, and died in 
Cyprus. But after a short time quarrels among the Persian 
satraps induced them to change their policy, so that Sparta 


PEACE OF ANTALCIDAS, 


299 


had to continue the war against the Persians, while Athens 
was favoured by them. 

11. Meanwhile, the Spartans gained some advantages in 
Acarnania, which country they compelled to enter into an alli¬ 
ance with them, b. c. 390; and the Spartan Teleutias was suc¬ 
cessful in preventing the Athenians from reaping benefit from 
a revolution which had taken place in the island of Rhodes, 
and in which the popular party had gained the upper hand. 
These circumstances alarmed the Athenians not a little, and 
they once more sent out the aged Thrasybulus with a fleet. 
He first gained considerable advantages on the coast of Thrace 
and in the iEgean, and then proceeded to Rhodes, but was 
taken by surprise in his camp at Aspendos and killed. Owing 
to the fall of this brave man, whose place was supplied 
by the reckless and effeminate Agyrrhius, the Spartans 
recovered their losses on the coasts of the Hellespont, until 
they were defeated in b. c. 389 by Iphicrates at Abydos. In 
the year following they made themselves masters of iEgina, 
and harassed the Attic territory. While these things were 
occurring in Greece, Antalcidas again went to Asia, determined 
to conclude a peace with Persia, in spite of all opposition. At 
the same time he increased the naval power of Sparta, and did 
much injury to the commerce between Athens and the Euxine. 
These circumstances led the Athenians also to turn their 
thoughts to peace, and their allies, the Argives and Corinthians, 
being tired of the war, likewise sent envoys to Tiribazus. 
With the consent of these ambassadors a peace was concluded 
on the following terms:—That the cities in Asia and the islands 
of Clazomenae and Cyprus should belong to the king of Persia; 
but that all other Greek towns, large and small, should be 
independent, with the exception of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, 
which should, as of old, belong to the Athenians. This peace, 
called the peace of Antalcidas, was concluded in b. c. 387. 
The Thebans and Argives were not inclined to comply with 


300 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


its terms, according to which they ought to have set free the 
towns in their respective territories, over which they had 
hitherto exercised the supremacy. But they were compelled 
by threats to yield. Sparta, however, which ought to have 
been foremost in emancipating the towns of Laconia and Mes- 
senia, retained its sovereignty over them, while it sacrificed 
the independence of the Asiatic Greeks, to secure which so 
many battles had been, fought against the barbarians during 
the last hundred years. 


CHAPTER X. 

FROM THE PEACE OF ANTALCIDAS TO THE BATTLE OF 

CHAERONEIA. 

1. The object of the peace of Antalcidas was to divide 
all Greece into a large number of small independent states; 
but that object was never completely attained. Sparta itself 
not only refused to resign its supremacy over Laconia and Mes- 
senia, but openly aimed at the sovereignty of all Greece. The 
small towns, moreover, in the course of a short time were 
naturally subjugated by their more powerful neighbours. In 
the quarrels which thus arose, Sparta took a dishonest part, 
and fostering dissension, turned it to its own advantage by 
subduing both small and great. In this manner the Man- 
tineans became subject to Sparta. The city was destroyed 
and its inhabitants were distributed among four open villages, 
b. c* 385. In b. c. 384, Phlius experienced a similar fate, 
and Sparta by violence established her supremacy in Pelopon¬ 
nesus, Argos alone maintaining its independence. But not satis¬ 
fied with this she assumed the right of interfering in the affairs 
of the most distant parts of Greece. A coalition was then form¬ 
ing in the north, of which Olynthos was the head; and a report 



THE OLYNTIIIAN WAR. 


301 


that Athens and Boeotia purposed to join it, induced the 
Spartans at once to send out Eudamidaswith two thousand men, 
who took possession of Potidaea. The war, of which this was 
the commencement, is called the Olyntliian, and lasted from 
b. c. 383 to 379. Soon after the departure of Eudamidas, 
the great army of the Peloponnesian allies followed under 
Phoebidas. On his arrival in Boeotia, the oligarchical party 
of Thebes betrayed the city into the hands of Phoebidas, and 
Ismenias, the leader of the_ popular party, was arrested. 
Sparta sanctioned this act of base treason, and Ismenias was 
put to death. But about three hundred men of the popular 
party escaped to Athens, one of whom was Pelopidas, the 
future deliverer of his country. Epaminondas, the friend of 
Pelopidas, though belonging to the same party, was left 
unmolested, because he had neither wealth nor rank to make 
him formidable. 

2. The war against Olynthos was at first unsuccessful, until 
in b. c. 381, Agesipolis, with a fresh army and numerous rein¬ 
forcements, gave a different turn to the state of affairs, and 
compelled the Olynthians to confine themselves within their 
walls. But Agesipolis died the year after, and was succeeded 
in the command by Polybiades, who continued the siege, and 
in the end forced the Olynthians by famine to sue for peace. 
A treaty was accordingly concluded, in which the supremacy of 
Sparta was recognised, b. c. 379. Sparta had now reached 
the height of her power; all opposition was crushed, and Argos 
and Corinth were as yet too exhausted to venture upon a 
fresh war. But this year of Sparta’s greatest prosperity was 
at the same time the beginning of her downfall. 

3. Pelopidas in his exile had been forming plans of deli¬ 
vering his country, and with a small number of fellow-exiles 
he entered Thebes by night in disguise; and being there 
joined by Charon, they proceeded to the houses of the leaders 
of the oligarchy and put them tc death. The citizens were 


302 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


then called out to assert their freedom. At daybreak all the 
Thebans assembled in arms, and an Athenian army, which had 
been waiting on the frontier, hastened to Thebes to assist the 
popular party. The Spartan harmost withdrew to the Cad- 
mea, but was soon obliged to capitulate; he and his garrison 
were allowed to depart unhurt, but those Thebans who had 
been instrumental in betraying the city into the hands of the 
enemy were put to death. The Spartans on hearing the 
tidings of these events, resolved to reduce Thebes by force of 
arms, and thus commenced the Theban war, which lasted for 
many years, from b. c. 378 to 362. During this war, in which 
all Greece took part, Thebes recovered the supremacy of 
Boeotia, and under Epaminondas even gained that of all 
Greece; while Athens recovered her maritime ascendancy. 
By this war, too, Greece weakened herself so much, that sub¬ 
sequently she became an easy prey to the Macedonians. 

4. In the beginning of b. c. 378, Cleombrotus invaded 
Boeotia, but committed no act of hostility against Thebes; and 
the Athenians, who from fear began to think of renouncing 
their alliance with Thebes, were induced only by a stratagem 
to remain faithful. They then earnestly prepared for war 
against Sparta, and concluded alliances not only with the Boeo¬ 
tians, but with the most powerful maritime towns, such as 
Chios, Byzantium, Rhodes, Mytilene, and a large number of 
others. Athens was at the head of this new confederacy, and had 
the supreme command in the war; but every allied state had 
a separate vote. The Athenian navy was gradually increased 
to three hundred sail, and the moderation and wisdom displayed 
by the Athenians in their new position secured to them the 
confidence of the confederates. During the first two years of 
the war, the Lacedaemonians invaded and ravaged Boeotia, 
but nothing of any consequence was effected, for the Thebans 
remained behind their fortifications; in the third vear the 
Lacedaemonians were repulsed by the Athenians in attempt- 


THEBAN WAR. 


303 


ing to march through the passes of Cithaeron. Meanwhile, 
Pelopidas had formed and trained an excellent army at Thehes, 
the most illustrious part of which, the sacred band, consisted 
of a body of the most patriotic young men. The Spartans, 
after being baffled by the Athenians, built a fleet partly to 
operate against Athens, and partly to transport their troops 
into Boeotia, but it was destroyed off Naxos by the Athenian 
Chabrias in b. c. 376 ; and to prevent the Peloponnesians 
from sending forces against Boeotia, the Athenians, sending 
Timotheus with a fleet round Peloponnesus, gained possession 
of Cythera, and induced Cephallenia, Acarnania, and several 
Epirot tribes to join the Athenian confederacy. By this means 
Boeotia escaped being again harassed and ravaged by the Lace¬ 
daemonians, and Thebes established her supremacy over the 
Boeotian towns, which was completed in b. c. 375, when the 
influence of Sparta was broken in a battle near Orchomenos. 

5. The success of Thebes excited fears and alarm at 
Athens, and led to a peace between Athens and Sparta, on 
the understanding that the terms of the peace of Antalcidas 
should be carried into effect. Thebes, guided by Pelopidas 
and Epaminondas, refused to become a party to this peace, 
and the Boeotian towns which still asserted their independ¬ 
ence, such as Plataeae, Thespiae, and Orchomenos, were razed 
to the ground. The peace between Athens and Sparta did 
not indeed last long, but Athens pursued an independent 
course, leaving Sparta to continue the war against Thebes. 
In the other parts of Greece the intestine struggles between 
oligarchy and democracy were continued or recommenced with 
the same fierceness as during the Peloponnesian war, and as 
the oligarchs were no longer supported by Sparta, the demo¬ 
cratic party almost everywhere gained the upper hand. At 
Zacynthos, where the popular party was aided by Timotheus, 
the Spartans were unsuccessful in attempting to support the 
oligarchs ; they were at the same time besieging Corcyra, 


304 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


likewise in aid of their partizans, and before Iphicrates, 
who succeeded Timotheus, could reach the island, the Spar¬ 
tans had been defeated, and their fleet, from fear of the 
Athenians, had retreated to Leucas, b. c. 373. But Iphi¬ 
crates nevertheless continued the war with great success, and 
was on the point of beginning operations against Pelopon¬ 
nesus, when negotiations for peace were again commenced. 
The terms proposed by the king of Persia., who now acted 
the part of a mediator among the Greeks, were again those 
of Antalcidas, and were accepted by both Athens and Sparta, 
hut Thebes was excluded because it refused to set the Boeo¬ 
tian towns free. 

6. Immediately after the conclusion of this peace, the 
Spartan king Cleombrotus marched into Boeotia, and in b. c. 
371 the Thebans, without any allies, fought the great battle 
of Leuctra against an army far more numerous than their own. 
But being commanded by Pelopidas and Epaminondas, 
they gained a brilliant victory, for Cleombrotus was killed, 
and with him four hundred Spartans and upwards of three 
thousand Laconians. The victory was owing to the pru¬ 
dence and courage of Epaminondas, who on that day gave 
the first signal proof of his skill as a military commander. 
Sparta in this battle lost her military glory and her power; her 
supremacy in Peloponnesus was gone, and the Arcadians were 
the first that began to assert their independence. Mantineia was 
rebuilt; all the Arcadian states united themselves into one, and 
it was resolved to found a capital, which was forthwith com¬ 
menced, and received the name of Megalopolis. The Spartans 
indeed endeavoured to check the growth of this new state, 
but to no purpose. The Arcadians expected support from 
Thebes, which strengthened itself by alliances with the Pho- 
cians, Euboeans, Locrians, Acarnanians, and others, and then 
invaded Peloponnesus, in b. c. 369, under the command of 
Pelopidas and Epaminondas. In Peloponnesus they were 


THE THEBAN WAR. 


305 


joined by the Arcadians, Argives, and Eleans, and an army 
of seven thousand men marched against Sparta. Never had an 
enemy been so near the gates of the city, and in their alarm 
the Spartans would even have enlisted their slaves, had they 
not been afraid of them. As the first attack on the city pro¬ 
duced no effect, Epaminondas proceeded southward as far as 
Helos and Gythion, which he set on fire. Large numbers of 
Helots and Spartan subjects flocked to his standard. But the 
severest blow he inflicted upon' his enemies consisted in the 
restoration of the independence of Messenia. He invited the 
Messenians from all parts of Greece to return to their ancient 
homes, and began building the capital of Messene at the foot of 
Ithome, which became its citadel. All this was accomplished 
in less than three months, after which Epaminondas returned 
to Boeotia, in the autumn of b. c. 369. 

7. Sparta in her distress applied to Athens for assistance, 
and the Athenians, with their wonted generosity, sent Iphi- 
crates into Peloponnesus ; a treaty was at the same time 
concluded between the two cities, according to which the 
supreme command should belong to each alternately. But 
Iphicrates was not able to cut off the return of Epaminondas 
from Peloponnesus, as he had hoped. In the year b. c. 368 
Epaminondas made a second expedition against Sparta. The 
Isthmus was occupied by Athenian and Peloponnesian forces, 
but Epaminondas defeated them and forced his way into the 
peninsula, where, being joined by his allies, he ravaged the terri¬ 
tories of several towns attached to Sparta, and compelled others 
to surrender. In the meantime Sparta received succour from 
Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily; and Arcadia, in consequence of 
its ambition or arrogance, found itself forsaken by Thebes. 
While the condition of Sparta was thus somewhat improved, 
proposals of peace arrived from the king of Persia; but they 
were not listened to, and Thebes peremptorily declared that she 

would not give up her supremacy over Boeotia. The war 

x 


306 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


therefore continued, although another enemy had arisen in the 
north, against whom Thebes had to direct a part of her forces. 
Jason of Pherae in Thessaly, being commander-in -chief of the 
Thessalian towns, and seeing the distracted state of Greece, 
formed the scheme of raising himself to the supremacy of all the 
Greek states. With this view he interfered in the war between 
Thebes and Sparta; but soon after the battle of Leuctra, in b.c. 
370, he was assassinated. His two successors were likewise 
murdered in rapid succession. Alexander, who then succeeded 
to the tyrannis of Pherae and to the command of the Thessalian 
towns, attacked Macedonia, but concluded a treaty with king 
Alexander, whose brother Philip he received as a hostage. 
In b.c. 368 Pelopidas invaded Thessaly, but was made pri¬ 
soner. It was in vain that the Thebans sent an army into 
Thessaly to obtain his liberation, for Alexander of Pherae 
was assisted by the Athenians; but Epaminondas in a second 
campaign gained his end. Some years later, Pelopidas again 
entered Thessaly to assist the towns against their cruel tyrant, 
but he fell in a bloody battle at Cynoscephalae ; the Thebans, 
however, gained the victory, and compelled the tyrant to 
restore independence to the Thessalian towns, and to enter 
into an alliance with Thebes, b. c. 364. 

8. Meanwhile the Arcadian state had come to an untimely 
end ; it had carried on the war against Sparta single-handed ; 
but the Spartans, with the reinforcements from Syracuse, 
defeated the Arcadians in b. c. 367, in a battle in which ten 
thousand Arcadians are said to have fallen, while the Spartans 
did not lose a single man. In the year after this battle, 
b. c. 366, Epaminondas invaded Peloponnesus for the third 
time ; but the few advantages he gained were soon lost again. 
In the year following,the Arcadians, at the suggestion of their 
brave leader, entered into an alliance with Athens against 
Thebes, and this led several of the minor states to think about 
peace, but a war, which broke out in b. c. 365, between Arcadia 


BATTLE OF MANTINEA. 


307 


and Elis, destroyed all hopes of it. The Arcadians invaded 
and ravaged the country of Elis; hut Sparta then allied her¬ 
self with Elis, and in the next year, when the Arcadians 
renewed their inroad, the Lacedaemonians appeared with an 
auxiliary force. The Arcadians, by their superiority in 
numbers, defeated both hostile armies, and even took posses¬ 
sion of Olympia. The treasures of its temple, however, soon 
led the Arcadians to quarrel among themselves, some wishing 
to employ them in paying the armies, while others were un¬ 
willing to give them up. But both parties appeared to be desir¬ 
ous to come to an understanding and arrange matters amicably, 
when suddenly the Theban commander, who was present, 
arrested a number of the most distinguished persons who had 
supported the opinion, that the treasures should be spent upon 
the army. Mantineia, which had been at the head of that 
party, keenly felt the insult, and called on all the Pelopon¬ 
nesians to assert their independence of Thebes. But Epami- 
nondas was already approaching with an army. He was 
accompanied by the Euboeans and Thessalians, and in Pelo¬ 
ponnesus he was joined by the Messenians, Argives, and the 
inhabitants of several Arcadian towns. The army of the 
Lacedaemonians and their allies was encamped at Mantineia. 
After several petty and unsuccessful skirmishes, Epaminondas 
resolved to venture upon a decisive battle, which was fought 
in the summer of b. c. 362 in the neighbourhood of Mantineia. 
His attack was so vehement that the enemy was overpowered 
at the first onset, and put to flight. But Epaminondas him¬ 
self was mortally wounded, a spear having pierced his breast: 
he would not allow the weapon to be extracted from the 
wound, until he was assured that the victory was won. 
After this was done he expired. The consequence of this 
battle, one of the greatest in Greek history, was that Thebes 
sank from the lofty position she had for some time occupied, for 
her greatness had been owing solely to Telopidas and Epami- 


308 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


nondas ; but tbe power of Sparta was likewise broken. Both 
parties were weakened and exhausted, and remained quiet for 
a time ; but peace was not concluded until the year follow¬ 
ing, b. c. 361, when independence was secured to tbe Mes- 
senians. Sparta alone could not bring herself to be a party 
to it. In the same year she was deprived of her great hero 
Agesilaus. He had gone with an army to Egypt to support 
a rebellion against the king of Persia, and on his return, laden 
with booty, he died at a place on the Libyan coast. 

9. During the period which had just elapsed, a great 
change had taken place in the affairs of Greece. - Formerly 
the citizens of every little state had joyfully tendered their 
service whenever their country stood in need of it, but it had 
now become a regular custom to engage mercenaries to fight the 
battles, while the citizens remained at home and enjoyed the 
pleasures and luxuries of life. This new system was accom¬ 
panied by all the evils that usually follow in its train, espe¬ 
cially when a state is poor, as was then the case with nearly 
all the Greek republics. Athens, however, although in many 
respects she was not better than other states, still retained a 
vitality, and at times displayed an energy which are truly 
astonishing, and show that her citizens had not become quite 
unworthy of those ancestors who fought the battles of Marathon 
and Salamis. But though we must admit this, it cannot be 
denied, on the other hand, that the ancient feeling of national 
honour had disappeared at Athens, for the demagogues be¬ 
trayed and sold their country, fully knowing what they were 
doing, and the people looked on with indifference, being bent 
only on pleasure and amusement. While all the states of 
Greece were more or less in this condition, a power was 
rising in the north and emerging from a state of barbarism, 
which in the end crushed the liberty of Greece. That power 
was Macedonia. 

10. Ancient Macedonia, until the time of Philip, extended 


MACEDONIA. 


309 


in the south as far as mount Olympus and the Cambunian 
range of mountains, in the east to the river Strymon; in 
the north and west the boundary line cannot be accurately 
marked; but Philip, the father of Alexander, greatly ex¬ 
tended his kingdom. The country forms a plain somewhat 
resembling an amphitheatre, surrounded on three sides by 
high mountains, but intersected by lower ranges of hills, 
which form wide valleys stretching from the sea-coast to a 
considerable distance in the interior. These valleys were 
as fertile as the best parts of Greece ; the heights were richly 
wooded, and well adapted for pasture land ; and several of 
them were rich in metals of every description. It has already 
been remarked, that the great body of the people were in all 
probability Pelasgians, mixed with Illyrians, and that the 
Greeks usually called them barbarians. The ruling dynasty, 
however, claimed to be of Hellenic origin, and traced their 
descent to Caranus, a brother of the Heracleid king Pheidon 
of Argos. The kingly dignity was never abolished in Mace¬ 
donia, but maintained itself from the earliest to the latest times. 
The history of the kingdom, from its foundation down to the 
accession of Archelaus in b. c. 413, is almost buried in obscu¬ 
rity. The country appears to have been governed by several 
princes who were frequently at war with one another. Arche¬ 
laus, who reigned from b. c. 413 to 399, laid the foundation 
of the greatness of Macedonia, by building fortresses, making 
roads, and increasing the armies. Pie was also a great 
admirer of art and literature, and did much to introduce 
Hellenic culture among his subjects. He appears to have been 
murdered by his own friend Craterus, and was succeeded by 
his son Orestes, w T ho being a minor, was under the guardian¬ 
ship of Aeropus. During the first four years Aeropus was 
faithful to his ward, but during the last two he reigned alone, 
and was succeeded in b. c. 394 by his son Pausanias, who 
was assassinated the very year of his accession by Amyntas 


310 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


II. This last occupied the throne for a period of twenty- 
four years, from b. c. 393 to 369. Amyntas sided with 
the Spartans in their war against Olynthos and its con¬ 
federacy. He also connected himself with Jason, the tyrant 
of Pherae, and cultivated the friendship of the Athenians, 
with w T hom he sympathised in their hatred of Olynthos and 
of Thebes. Under him the seat of government seems to 
have been transferred from the ancient capital of iEgeae 
(Edessa) to Pella. He died at an advanced age in b. c. 369, 
leaving behind him three legitimate sons, Alexander, Perdic- 
cas, and the great Philip. Alexander, the eldest, seems to 
have reigned for two years; and while he was engaged in a 
war against Alexander of Pherae, a usurper of the name of 
Ptolemy Alorites arose. Pelopidas the Theban being called 
upon to mediate between them, left Alexander on the throne, 
but took several hostages with him to Thebes. One of 
these hostages is said to have been the king’s youngest brother 
Philip. But no sooner had Pelopidas left Macedonia than 
Alexander was murdered, b. c. 367. Ptolemy Alorites now 
took possession of the supreme power; but Pausanias, a new 
pretender, brought him into great difficulties, from which he 
was rescued by the intervention of Ipliicrates, who established 
Perdiccas, the second son of Amyntas, on the throne, while 
Ptolemy retained the substance of power under the title of 
regent. The partizans of the late king again invoked the 
interference of Pelopidas against him, but he maintained 
himself in his position, and concluding a treaty with Thebes, 
he gave up the alliance with Athens. He continued in the 
exercise of his power until b. c. 364, when he was assassinated 
by the young king Perdiccas, who now reigned in his own 
name until b. c. 359. The history of this latter period of his 
reign is very obscure, and we only know that he was engaged 
in hostilities against Athens on account of Amphipolis, and 
that he patronized and invited to his court the most eminent 


PHILIP OF MACEDONIA. 


311 


Greek philosophers and men of letters. He was killed in a 
war against the Illyrians. 

11. Philip, his brother, who was living at Thebes 
as a hostage, now made his escape to Macedonia, to esta¬ 
blish his claims to the throne. The kingdom was in a 
most perilous condition: it was threatened by the victorious 
Illyrians, who had destroyed a great part of the Macedonian 
army, and by other neighbouring tribes. In addition to this, 
Philip was opposed by two pretenders, Pausanias and Argaeus, 
the former of whom was supported by the Thracians, and the 
latter by the Athenians. Pausanias was induced by Philip's 
liberality to give up his claims, and Argaeus with his allies 
was defeated near Methone. The towns on the Thracian 
coast were the cause of the first conflict between him and the 
Athenians, who had been endeavouring to maintain or increase 
their maritime power. But their successful days were gone ; 
their fleet under Leosthenes was defeated by Alexander of 
Pherae, and they were unable to prevent their ancient colony 
of Amphipolis from falling into the hands of the Olynthians, 
e. c. 359. This was what Philip had wished, for his object 
was to drive the Athenians from the coast of Thrace, and to 
add it to his own empire. The year after this he also 
subdued the Paeonians, and all the country as far as Lake 
Lychnitis. During his residence at Thebes, Philip had 
become acquainted with the civilisation of the Greeks; and 
although he preserved the manners and customs of his own 
country, he always favoured and cherished Greek culture. 
With the prudence, cunning, and adroitness of an expert 
politician, he combined the talents of a general, the energy 
and perseverance of a soldier, and the generosity and liber¬ 
ality of a king. He did not interfere with the customs and 
institutions of the nations he conquered, whence they felt the 
loss of their political freedom less painfully. His army, con¬ 
sisting of heavy-armed infantry, well-trained cavalry, and his 


312 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


brave body-guard, was far superior to the mercenary troops 
employed at that time by the Greek states, and fought for 
the honour and glory of their own nation. His heavy-armed 
soldiers formed the phalanx, which, though somewhat awk¬ 
ward, was irresistible. Being in possession of great wealth, 
he practised the art of bribery as successfully as that of arms. 
Promises and oaths were no obstacle to him, if by their 
violation he could gain his own ends. Unfortunately for 
Greece, Philip had at his command the forces of a united and 
compact kingdom, while Greece was torn to pieces by party 
spirit, weakened by the want of unity against the common 
enemy, and betrayed by unprincipled demagogues and orators. 

12. At the time when Philip was extending the frontiers 
of his kingdom in the west and in the east, Athens was unable 
to check his victorious progress, for she was already engaged 
in what is called the Social War, against her revolted allies, 
from b. c. 357 to 355. The allies were headed by Chios, and 
with a fleet of one hundred galleys they ravaged Imbros, Lem¬ 
nos, and Samos. Athens had able commanders in Timotheus 
and Iphicrates, but the enmity and short-sightedness of Chares, 
a man less able than either of them, drove them into exile, and 
the command passed into his hands. Owing to the negotia¬ 
tions he had entered into with a revolted Persian satrap, king 
Artaxerxes II. threatened to support the allies with a large 
fleet. Athens therefore ordered Chares to suspend hostilities, 
and concluded a peace, in which she lost her most powerful 
allies, and with them the best part of her revenue. While 
these things were going on,Philip of Macedonia had interfered 
in the affairs of Thessaly, where his assistance had been 
requested against the tyrant Lycophron of Pherae, the mur¬ 
derer and successor of Alexander. Philip acted with energy, 
and recovered freedom and independence for all the Thessalian 
towns, in consequence of which, they supported him in his 
schemes for a long time. But he did not abolish the tyrannis 


THE SACRED WAR. 


313 


at Pherae, as he saw that the tyrants also might be useful to 
him; and it was his connection with Pherae that opened to 
him the road to Greece, as Pherae supported the Phocians in 
the war in which they were soon afterwards engaged, and 
which is commonly called the Sacred, though it was in 
reality only a continuation of the Theban war. It lasted for 
ten years, from b. c. 355 to 346, and was carried on with 
unparalleled exasperation on both sides. 

13. The Thebans had resolved to avail themselves of the 
position they still occupied among the Greek states for the 
purpose of conquering the Phocians. The ancient and obsolete 
council of the Amphictions was thought a fit instrument to 
accomplish this end, and an accusation was brought before it 
against the Phocians for having taken into cultivation a tract 
of land which had been regarded as an accursed district, and 
had until then been a waste. The council of the Amphic¬ 
tions, according to the wushes of the Thebans, declared the 
Phocians guilty, and, demanding an exorbitant fine, ordered 
them to destroy the work of their own hands. As the Pho¬ 
cians refused to obey the command, the Amphictionic states 
forthwith commenced hostilities against them. The Phocians, 
however, who had foreseen what now happened, had taken 
possession of the Delphic temple and its treasures. The 
Thebans and Locrians were the first to commence the war to 
vindicate the honour of Apollo. The brave Philomelus was 
the soul of all the undertakings of the Phocians, and it was 
by his advice that they seized the treasures of the Delphic 
temple, and coined the enormous sum of ten thousand talents 
to defray the expenses of the war. For a time Philomelus 
and his mercenaries were successful, but in the end he was 
defeated in a bloody battle near Neon, b. c. 353, whereupon 
his brother Onomarchus undertook the command, for the 
Phocians were resolved to fight to the last. Onomarchus 
scrupled at nothing, and the sacred treasures were lavishly 


314 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


employed in bribing as well in meeting tbe necessary expen¬ 
diture. He subdued several Locrian towns, and even entered 
Boeotia, where be conquered Orcbomenos. 

14. Lycophron of Pherae bad been gained over by tbe 
bribes of Onomarcbus, and in tbe struggles between tbe 
Thessalians and their tyrant, tbe Phocians bad sent an auxi¬ 
liary force to support Lycophron, but bad been defeated by 
Philip. Onomarcbus, however, soon after followed in person 
and routed Philip and tbe Thessalians in two battles. Philip 
then returned to Macedonia to collect a fresh army, with which 
shortly after he re-appeared in Thessaly. Onomarchus again 
went to the assistance of Lycophron with a large army. 
A bloody battle was fought near Magnesia, in which the 
Macedonians proclaimed themselves the champions of Apollo 
and gained the victory. Athens and Sparta were allied with 
the Phocians, and Onomarchus perished in attempting to 
reach the Athenian fleet which was stationed near Thermo¬ 
pylae. He was succeeded by his brother Phayllus, w r hom 
Lycophron, when obliged to give up Pherae, joined with 
a large band of mercenaries. Philip attempted to pene¬ 
trate into Greece by Thermopylae, but being prevented by 
the Athenian fleet, returned to Macedonia. He had, how¬ 
ever, gained a right to interfere in the affairs of Greece, and 
the great Athenian orator Demosthenes, who already saw 
through the king's schemes, directed the attention of his 
countrymen to them in his first Philippic speech, which he 
delivered in b. c. 352. Meanwhile Phayllus continued the war 
with great vigour; but he was repeatedly beaten in Boeotia, and 
at last, in b. c. 351, an illness terminated his life. Phalaecus, 
his successor, was at first likewise unsuccessful; but Boeotia 
suffered fearfully from the repeated inroads and devastations 
of the Phocians, and notwithstanding the Persian subsidies 
which Thebes received, the Phocians in the end defeated 
the Boeotians in a great battle at Coroneia, b. c. 346, in 


THE SACKED WAR. 


315 


consequence of which many Boeotian towns fell into the hands 
of the enemy. 

15. In this distress the Thebans sought the assistance of 
Philip, who rejoiced at the opportunity thus offered to him. 
As early as the year b. c. 353, the Olynthians and the other 
Chalcidian towns had concluded an alliance with Athens, to 
protect themselves against the encroachments of Philip, who 
shortly after his return from Thermopylae, thinking the 
Athenians sufficiently careless about their allies, marched 
with a large army against Olynthos. The terrified Olynthians 
sent three successive embassies to Athens, and the eloquence 
of Demosthenes roused his countrymen to send auxiliary forces, 
and even to attempt the formation of a confederacy of all the 
Greeks against Macedonia. However, nothing was able to check 
the king’s progress. The Chalcidian towns were conquered one 
after another, and Olynthos itself was treacherously delivered up 
into his hands, and like many other places razed to the ground, 
b. c. 347. To lull Athens into security, Philip carried on 
negotiations for peace, while at the same time he continued 
his conquests on the coasts of Thrace. Demosthenes exerted 
himself in vain to open the eyes of the Athenians to the 
designs of Philip, and even the great orator himself was 
deceived in the end. It was at this juncture that the Thebans 
invited Philip to bring the Sacred War to a close. The 
Athenians, who were likewise tired of the war, and unable to 
sustain any further losses, sent ambassadors to Philip to con¬ 
clude a peace with him. The king excluded the Phocians 
from the negotiations, in order not to offend the Thebans, and 
also retained possession of the Athenian colony of Amphipolis. 
The peace was accepted at Athens, and another embassy 
went to Pella to obtain the king’s signature. But the 
ambassadors were purposely detained while Philip continued 
his conquests in Thrace and made fresh military prepara¬ 
tions. At length, however, he signed the peace at Pherae, 


316 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


whither the ambassadors had followed him. But as soon as 
they left him, he passed through Thermopylae without meet¬ 
ing with any opposition. Phalaecus now despaired of his 
country’s cause, and, concluding peace with Philip, took his 
departure for Peloponnesus. The Phocians, thus forsaken 
by their leader, surrendered, on the understanding that Philip 
would exercise his influence with the Amphictions in their 
behalf; but they were bitterly disappointed, and the verdict 
against them was most merciless : the Phocians were for ever 
excluded from the league, their arms had to be delivered up, 
their towns were destroyed, and the people were to live in 
open villages and to pay annually sixty talents to the temple 
of Delphi, until the god should be indemnified. This sentence 
was carried into execution by Theban and Macedonian soldiers, 
and ten thousand Phocians were transported to colonies which 
Philip had established in Thrace. Many Boeotian towns 
which were hostile to Thebes were given over to that city, 
and deprived of their walls, while a great number of their 
inhabitants were reduced to slavery. 

16. Philip had now gained one important step towards 
the supremacy of Greece, which was the object of his ambition, 
for he stepped into the place of the Phocians in the Amphic- 
tionic league, and obtained the superintendence of the Delphic 
temple with the presidency at the Pythian games. The 
terrible fate of the Phocians alarmed the Athenians in the 
highest degree, but their fears were allayed by the fair inten¬ 
tions which the bribed iEschines ascribed to Philip, and as 
Athens was not in a condition to commence hostilities, even 
Demosthenes, in the end, advised his countrymen to keep 
peace, and give in their adhesion to the decree of the Amphic¬ 
tions. During the whole period of the Sacred War, Sparta 
had been engaged in a contest in the hope of recovering her 
supremacy in Peloponnesus. With this view she waged war 
against Megalopolis and Argos; and against the latter city, 


CONQUESTS OF PHILIP. 


317 


which was supported by Thebes, she was very successful. 
At the close of the Sacred War, in b. c. 346, hostilities were 
still going on; Philip’s gold had found its w'ay even into 
Peloponnesus, where a Macedonian party was formed in 
several cities, and Sparta apprehended an invasion of the 
peninsula. Athens, also dreading this, endeavoured to deprive 
the king of every pretext for interfering by bringing about 
a peace among the Peloponnesian states. In the meantime 
Demosthenes convinced the Athenians that Philip had never 
honestly wished for peace, and that all his pretensions were 
mere blinds, his object being to crush the democratic consti¬ 
tution of Athens and to make himself master of Greece. As the 
king had his agents scattered over all parts of the country, he 
was enabled for a time to turn his attention to other matters, 
and not only established colonies, embellished his capital, and 
vigorously worked the mines in Macedonia and Thrace, but 
subdued Illyricum and Thessaly. He then made himself 
master of Ambracia, but was prevented from advancing further 
south in that quarter by the precautions of Athens. He con¬ 
tinued however his conquests on the coast of Thrace, where 
again he came into conflict with the Athenians, but nothing 
was able to rouse them to vigorous action against the 
intriguing Macedonian, who, while professing to be concerned 
about the maintenance of peace, was doing all he could to stir 
up a war in Greece in order that he might have an oppor¬ 
tunity of interfering. 

17. Meanwhile Phocion was counteracting the influence of 
Philip in Euboea and Megara, and even recovered Euboea 
for Athens. The events on the coast of Thrace at length 
began to rouse the slumbering energies of Athens, though not 
until even the king of Persia had shown symptoms of alarm. 
When Philip in b. c. 340 laid siege to Perinthos and Byzan¬ 
tium, the Athenians prevailed upon Cos, Rhodes, and Chios 
to support Byzantium, and the Persian king also sent an 


318 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


auxiliary force. Athens in vain endeavoured to bring about 
a general coalition among the Greek states against the ag¬ 
gressor. Phocion, who now undertook the command, suc¬ 
ceeded in repelling him, and the Athenians in their new ardour 
annihilated, in b. c. 339, all traces of peace and friendship 
with Macedonia. In the same year Philip made an unsuc¬ 
cessful expedition against a Scythian tribe about the mouths 
of the Danube, and on his return he was met by envoys from 
the council of the Amphictions, who informed him that he was 
appointed commander-in-chief of the Amphictionic army in a 
war against the Locrians of Amphissa, who were charged 
with having taken into cultivation the plain of Cirrha which 
was sacred to Apollo. Philip himself had through his agents 
and hirelings stirred up this Sacred War. He of course readily 
accepted the new office, and at once proceeded southward with 
an army much larger than was required against the single 
town of Amphissa. At the same time he tried to thwart the 
attempts of the Athenians to bring about a coalition against 
him, and stirred up the ancient animosity between Thebes 
and Athens. Amphissa was soon reduced, but as he never¬ 
theless remained with his army in Locris, and at the 
beginning of the following year suddenly took possession 
of Elateia and Cytinion, the astonished Greeks at once per¬ 
ceived his real object. Demosthenes’ prophecies were now 
seen to be true, and under his guidance Athens concluded an 
alliance with Thebes. The Athenians were ready to do any 
thing and to make any sacrifice to secure the independence of 
Greece. They were reinforced by a considerable number of 
troops from other states, which were at length roused to a 
sense of duty. The army of the Greeks was about equal in 
number to that of the Macedonians. The Greeks at first were 
successful, and Philip being defeated in two battles, began to 
despair, but in the autumn of b. c. 338 a decisive battle was 
fought in the plain of Chaeroneia. The Greek commanders 


BATTLE OF CHAERONE1A. 


319 


were not men of any great abilities, while the Macedonians, 
independently of Philip himself, were commanded by the 
experienced Antipater and the bold young Alexander, Philip's 
son. The issue of the battle was for a long time undecided, but 
in the end the Macedonians gained the victory. One thousand 
Athenians lay dead on the field of battle, and two thousand 
were taken prisoners; the Thebans also sustained great loss. 

18. The battle of Chaeroneia. decided the fate of Greece. 
On the whole, Philip showed great moderation, for he treated 
the prisoners humanely, and restored them to liberty without 
ransom. He refused to inflict any severe punishment on Athens, 
and even offered peace on conditions which did not interfere 
with their political constitution. But the Athenians, when 
recovering from the first consternation, refused to listen to any 
proposals of peace, and were resolved to continue the struggle. 
Demosthenes and other patriots fanned the flame. But on 
cool reflection, it was found that their enthusiasm lacked the 
means of giving it effect; and an embassy was sent to Philip 
to accept and ratify the peace on the terms proposed by him. 
The Athenians had to give up Samos, for which they received 
Oropos, and promised to send deputies to a congress which was 
to meet at Corinth in the spring of b. c. 337. It was Demos¬ 
thenes who had urged his countrymen to the last struggle; 
but though it had been undertaken in vain, the people of 
Athens honoured his patriotic zeal, by commissioning him to 
deliver the funeral oration on those who had fallen in the 
battle. The king of Macedonia henceforth was the real master 
of Greece; but the administration of Athens was, during 
the unfortunate period which now followed, in the hands 
of men like Phocion, Demosthenes, and Lycurgus, who by 
their honesty and patriotic zeal kept Athens at the head 
of the Greek states, and raised her, comparatively speaking, 
to a high degree of prosperity. The Thebans were severely 
chastised for having abandoned the alliance with Philip; the 


320 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Cadmea was occupied by a Macedonian garrison, and Thebes 
lost her supremacy over the Boeotian towns. In Pelopon¬ 
nesus, the Corinthians, Achaeans, Eleans, and the towns of 
Argolis submitted to him as their acknowledged sovereign. 
Even Sparta yielded, for she was weak and helpless. 

19. In the spring of b. c. 337, the congress of the depu¬ 
ties from all the Greek states met at Corinth by command of 
Philip. Sparta alone kept aloof. There the king announced 
the final object of his undertakings to be the subjugation of 
Persia, and he himself was appointed commander-in-chief for 
the national war with unlimited power. The contingents to 
be furnished by the Greek states were fixed, and Philip made 
preparations on the largest scale. Some detachments of troops 
under Attalus and Parmenio were sent at once into Asia; but 
Philip himself was yet detained in Europe to settle some 
family disputes, and to quell an insurrection in Illyricum. His 
wife Olympias, the mother of Alexander, had spent some time 
away from the court, and when a reconciliation was effected, 
Philip endeavoured to strengthen it by giving his favourite 
daughter Cleopatra in marriage to Alexander of Epirus, a 
brother of Olympias. In the autumn of b. c. 336, brilliant 
festivals were celebrated at iEgeae in honour of this marriage. 
In the midst of these festivities Philip was murdered at the 
entrance of the theatre by one Pausanias, who had a private 
grudge against him. His son Alexander was only twenty 
years old, but the people and the army demanded his succes¬ 
sion. He had already distinguished himself on several occa¬ 
sions ; and his energy and genius peculiarly qualified him to 
rescue the kingdom from its perilous condition, for Greece was 
in commotion to assert its independence, the barbarous nations 
in the north and west were trying to shake off the recently 
imposed yoke, and at the court itself there were conspirators 
aiming at the life of the young king. His genius, however, 
overcame all dangers and difficulties. 


321 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE REIGN OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

3. Philip’s son Alexander, surnamed the Great, had 
received the most careful education under the superinten¬ 
dence of Aristotle, the greatest of all ancient philosophers. 
Under his training the young prince had become a perfect 
. Greek, and a. lover and admirer of Greek art and litera¬ 
ture. When the news of his father’s death and his own 
accession reached Athens, the patriots, among whom Demos¬ 
thenes was foremost, exerted themselves once more, arid a 
decree was forthwith passed, to honour the king’s murderer 
w r ith a crown, and to protest against his son’s assuming the 
supremacy in Greece, for it was imagined that the young 
king might easily be kept at bay; but they knew not his 
energy and his spirit. His first care was to get rid of those 
who were inclined to dispute his succession. Attalus, who 
had already been sent into Asia, and claimed the throne of 
Macedonia for a son of Philip’s second wife Cleopatra, was 
despatched by an assassin ; and when Alexander had secured 
himself against all pretenders, he marched into Thessaly to 
assert his supremacy over Greece sword in hand. The 
Thessalians after some slight resistance gave way, and recog¬ 
nising his claims at once promised to furnish their contin¬ 
gents whenever he should require them. With unexampled 
rapidity he proceeded southward, where no one expected him. 
At Thermopylae the Amphictions did homage to him, but as 
deputies from Thebes, Athens, and Sparta did not appear there, 
he marched into Boeotia, and encamped before the gates of 
Thebes. This at once convinced the Athenians that they 

had judged him wrongly, and an embassy was forthwith sent 

Y 


322 - 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


to sue for pardon, which was granted on condition of Athens 
sending deputies to the congress at Corinth, whither Alexander 
himself went from Euboea. There all the Greek states, with 
the exception of Sparta, accepted the king’s u peace and 
alliance.” He himself was appointed, in the place of his 
father, commander-in-chief of the Greeks against Persia, and 
all the states promised their contingents. The congress of 
Corinth, which had the superintendence of all the national 
affairs of Greece, remained assembled until Alexander’s 
death. 

2. The submission of Greece being thus secured, the 
young king returned in b. c. 335 to Macedonia, and imme¬ 
diately proceeded, with the most extraordinary rapidity and 
energy, against the northern and western barbarians, who 
threatened his kingdom. He humbled the Triballi between 
mount Haemus and the Danube, and even crossed that river 
to strike terror into the Getae who dwelt on its eastern banks. 
On his return thence he directed his arms against the Illyrians, 
in whose mountainous country his army was often in most 
perilous positions; but his quickness and personal bravery 
overcame all difficulties, and the conquered chiefs were com¬ 
pelled to do homage to him. He was, however, detained in 
Illyricum longer than had been anticipated, and reports were 
spread in Greece of his being defeated and killed. These 
rumours were eagerly caught up by the parties hostile to 
Macedonia in the different states of Greece, and a large sum 
of money which the king of Persia caused to be distributed 
among them produced the desired effect. Several states at 
once rose in arms, but Athens and Thebes distinguished 
themselves above all others by their zeal. Demosthenes and 
Lycurgus induced the Greeks to decree war against Macedonia 
and defend their independence. At Thebes the Macedonian 
garrison was besieged in the Cadmea and two officers were 
put to death. Suddenly, while the siege was still going on, 


ALEXANDER DESTROYS THEBES. 


323 


Alexander appeared in Boeotia with an army of twenty-three 
thousand men, with whom he had come from Illyricum in an 
incredibly short period. Every offer of reconciliation was 
rejected by the Thebans, and, after a brave defence, the city 
was taken by Alexander. Fearful vengeance was now inflicted 
upon the place ; the Cadmea was saved, but the city, with the 
exception of the temples and the house of the poet Pindar, was 
razed to the ground; all the inhabitants, save those holding 
priestly offices, were sold as slaves; their number amounted to 
twenty thousand, while six thousand had fallen in battle. 
This fearful fate of Thebes was not wholly undeserved, for 
she had at times acted with the same merciless cruelty towards 
her weaker neighbours. 

3. The fall of Thebes made a deep impression upon all 
the Greeks, and the Athenians, being again the first to change 
their minds, sent ambassadors to implore the king’s mercy. 
The request was granted on condition that they should deliver 
up to him the leaders of the party hostile to him, especially 
Demosthenes and Lycurgus. This demand, however, was not 
insisted upon, for Alexander, being anxious to win the affec¬ 
tions of the Athenians, even condescended to flatter them. 
It may be said in general that he was desirous by kindness 
and benevolence to secure tranquillity among the Greeks dur¬ 
ing his Asiatic expedition, upon which his mind was bent. 
In the autumn he quitted Greece, and during the ensuing win¬ 
ter made his preparations against Persia. In the spring of b. c. 
334, he set out with an army of thirty thousand foot and five 
thousand horse for Amphipolis and thence proceeded to Sestos, 
where a fleet was in readiness to transport his forces into Asia. 
Although his army was small, he felt sure of victory, for he 
knew the value of the myriads which the king of Persia had 
to oppose to him. Antipater was left behind as regent of 
Macedonia during his absence. His army consisted chiefly 
of Macedonians and other subject nations, for the Greek states 


324 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


are said to have furnished only about seven thousand men, 
But a far larger number of Greeks, unable to bear the Mace¬ 
donian yoke, had left their country to serve under the king 
of Persia, and among them were some men of great military 
talent, such as Memnon the Bhodian, who commanded all the 
naval forces of Persia, and kept up connections with the Greeks 
in Europe. His death in b, c. 333 was a great relief to 
Alexander. 

4. The Persian empire, which was at this time governed 
by Darius, surnamed Codomannus, had been in a state of 
decay ever since the time of Artaxerxes II., who reigned 
from b. c. 405 to 359. The voluptuous and licentious court, 
with its intrigues of women and its cruelties, presents a 
revolting picture of oriental baseness. In the interior of the 
empire we find the unbridled despotism of the ruler, along 
with anarchy and insubordination in the provinces, which 
produced revolts and bloody oppression. Some provinces 
made themselves independent, and the great king at Susa did 
not possess the power to reduce them to obedience ; in others, 
the satraps ruled at their own discretion, and oppressed their 
subjects with impunity, if they did but pay their tribute to 
the sovereign. The whole empire became like a rotten 
building which only required a strong shock from without to 
crumble into ruins. When Artaxerxes II. was despatched by 
poison he was succeeded by his son Ochus, from b. c. 359 to 
338, under whom the eunuch Bagoas, a monster in human 
form, had all the power in his own hands. Under his 
administration the empire would have broken to pieces, had 
not the bloodthirsty king and his terrible eunuch, by means 
of hosts of mercenaries, crushed the insurrections that broke 
out in various parts of his empire. Phoenicia threw off the 
Persian yoke, and, restoring its ancient federal constitution, 
made Tripolis its capital, b. c. 350; but the fall of Sidon, 
where forty thousand men killed themselves, that they might 


LAST KINGS OF PERSIA. 


325 


not be tortured to death by tbe Persians, decided the fate of the 
country: the city being reduced to a heap of ashes, made the 
other towns yield, and the Persian rule was once more esta¬ 
blished in the countries about mount Lebanon. In Egypt 
matters took a similar turn; for Nectanebos, after several suc¬ 
cessful contests, was defeated by the superior tactics of the Per¬ 
sian mercenaries in b.c. 347, and was obliged to fly into 
Ethiopia, whereupon Ochus and Bagoas raged with even greater 
fury and cruelty than Cambyses had done at the first conquest 
of the country. After a reign of twenty-two years, Ochus and 
his whole house were murdered by Baogas, and after an interval 
of two years the throne was ascended by Darius Codomannus, 
b.c. 336, a man of mild and affectionate character, but unfit 
to govern such an empire as Persia then was. As his life 
was not safe against the attacks of Bagoas, he got rid of the 
eunuch by poison, and afterwards displayed as much modera¬ 
tion and justice as was possible under the deplorable circum¬ 
stances of the empire ; but Darius had to pay the penalty for 
the crimes of his predecessors. 

5. When Alexander, in the spring of b. c. 334, crossed 
the Hellespont, he was accompanied by poets, historians, and 
philosophers, who were to immortalise his deeds, as those of 
Achilles had been immortalised by Homer; but in this antici¬ 
pation he was disappointed, for among all those who have 
written about Alexander there is none that approaches the 
ancient bard of Greece. His generals, Cleitus, Parmenio, 
Hephaestion, Craterus, Ptolemy, Antigonus, and others, were 
the first of the time, and two of them, Ptolemy and Aristo- 
bulus, subsequently wrote accounts of their master’s expedition, 
but their works are lost. On his arrival in Troy, Alexander 
celebrated games and offered up sacrifices in honour of the 
heroes of the Trojan war, among whom Achilles was the 
ideal which he is said to have striven to imitate. He delighted 
the Greeks by his love and admiration for their great heroes, 


326 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


while he cheered on the Macedonians by his chivalrous courage, 
his valour, and his adroitness. What such an army under 
such a leader was capable of effecting, became manifest in 
the very first encounter with the enemy on the little river 
Granicus, b.c. 334, where the Persians were defeated, although 
their numbers far surpassed those of the young Macedonian. 
The result of this victory was the submission of nearly all 
Asia Minor, as far as mount Taurus. Halicarnassus, which 
was bravely and skilfully defended by Greek mercenaries, 
was taken by assault, and the other Greek cities, submitting 
for the most part of their own accord, welcomed the hero 
who boasted of being a Greek like themselves, and promised 
to restore their ancient democratic constitutions. The most 
important islands of the iEgean fell into his hands, at the 
time when the enterprising Memnon of Ehodes, who had 
stirred up Sparta and other Greek states with Persian gold, 
suddenly died. In consequence of this, the Lydians, Carians, 
and Pamphylians likewise acknowledged his supremacy, and 
retained their ancient institutions. At Gordium Alexander 
cut with his sword the famous knot at the ancient royal car¬ 
riage, the untying of which was connected by an oracle with 
the dominion of all Asia. After this he marched through 
the dangerous mountain country of Cilicia, where, by bathing 
in the icy waters of the river Cydnus, he brought on a serious 
illness, from which he was saved only by the skill of his 
Greek physician Philip, and by his own faith in human 
virtue; for he had been cautioned in an anonymous letter 
against Philip, who was said to have been bribed by the Persians 
to poison him; but without giving way to suspicion, Alex¬ 
ander took the draught prepared by Philip, and, while drink¬ 
ing it, handed the anonymous letter to him. 

6. Darius, who had hitherto remained unconcerned in 
his capital of Susa, and had neglected to guard the mountain 
passes, now advanced with a large army to meet the enemy 


SIEGE OF TYRE. 


327 


near the passes leading from Cilicia into Syria, but was com¬ 
pletely defeated, in b. c. 333, in a great battle near Issus. 
The unfortunate king fled with the remains of his cowardly 
army into the interior, while Alexander made preparations 
for subjugating Palestine and Phoenicia, for he could not with 
safety leave these countries unsubdued in his rear. His general, 
Parmenio, in the meantime conquered the wealthy city of 
Damascus with its royal treasures. The booty which Alex¬ 
ander made at Issus was immense, and among his numerous 
prisoners were the mother, wife, and two daughters of Darius, 
whom the conqueror treated with kindness and generosity. 
Palestine and Phoenicia offered no resistance, but the city 
of Tyre in its proud feeling of greatness and of its insular 
security, haughtily spurned the demand to surrender. Alexan - 
der now undertook the memorable siege of Tyre, which detained 
him seven months. He constructed a causeway fortified with 
towers from the mainland to the island ; from it his soldiers 
attacked the city with all the means which the military art 
could then devise, while his fleet, which had been increased by 
those of Rhodes and Cyprus, blockaded the city by sea. But 
the Tyrians thwarted all his plans by skilful counter-opera¬ 
tions, and offered a most desperate resistance. At length, 
however, they had to succumb, and experienced the same 
merciless fate as Thebes, for all the inhabitants who were 
unable to escape, were massacred or sold into slavery, and 
the city was razed to the ground, b. c. 332. The commerce 
of which Tyre had until then been the centre, was afterwards 
transferred to Alexandria, which Alexander, after his conquest 
of Egypt, caused to be built at the mouth of the Nile, in the 
most convenient situation for connecting the eastern with the 
western world. Gaza, a well fortified and bravely defended 
frontier town, experienced a fate similar to that of Tyre. 
Egypt, on the other hand, where the Persians were hated and 
detested, welcomed the Macedonians as its deliverers, and 


328 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Alexander treated their national and religious feelings and 
peculiarities with a consideration which the Persians had never 
shown them. From Egypt he marched to the famous Oasis of 
Siwah with its celebrated oracle of Ammon, the priests of which 
declared him a son of the god: this, with the superstitious 
and imaginative nations of the East, greatly increased his 
authority, and made him appear in their eyes as a being of a 
higher order. 

7. While Alexander was engaged in Egypt, Darius had 
time to assemble fresh forces and prepare for a great strug¬ 
gle, which was to decide the fate of his empire. But before 
venturing upon this final step, he endeavoured, by certain 
concessions, to make peace with Alexander. The Mace¬ 
donian’s mind, however, was not set upon peace, and quit¬ 
ting Egypt with his army, which had been increased by 
fresh reinforcements, he advanced towards the Euphrates 
and Tigris, which he crossed, and in the plains of Gauga- 
mela, he again defeated, in b. c. 331, the hosts of the Persians 
which had assembled from the eastern parts of the empire, 
and are said to have been twenty times as numerous as the 
army of Alexander. The consequence of this great victory 
was, that the Macedonians became masters of Babylon and its 
fertile territory, and of the ancient capitals of Susa, Persepolis, 
and Ecbatana, with their vast treasures. Persepolis was reck¬ 
lessly destroyed by fire, hut its ruins, with their sculptures and 
inscriptions, still attest the greatness and magnificence of the 
ancient residence of the kings of Persia. Darius, after his 
defeat, fled from Ecbatana into the mountainous country of 
Bactria, where he was killed by the treacherous hand of his 
own satrap Bessus, who now assumed the title of king of 
Persia; hut soon afterwards, the traitor was overtaken and 
captured by the Macedonians, who nailed him to a cross. 

8. During the years b. c. 329 and 328, Alexander, by the 
boldest marches through the snow-covered mountains of the 


ALEXANDER IN INDIA. 


329 


Indian Caucasus, where his soldiers almost perished with 
hunger and fatigue, succeeded in making himself master of 
the countries on the south-east of the Caspian, and about the 
rivers Oxus and Jaxartes (Aria, Hyrcania, Bactria, Sogdiana, 
and others), which were inhabited by hardy and warlike 
tribes. At this stage of his progress, he appears to have 
aimed not merely at making conquests, but civilising the 
wild and barbarous tribes of Asia, for four new towns, all 
bearing the name of Alexandria, were founded by him in the 
distant East, as centres of Greek civilisation and of commerce. 
Some of these cities, as Herat and Candahar, exist even at 
the present day under altered names. At Bactra, Alexander, 
in b. c. 328, solemnized his marriage with Roxana, the 
daughter of a Bactrian chief, a the pearl of the East,” who 
had fallen into his hands during the conquest of a strong 
mountain fortress, into which the natives had carried their 

women and treasures. As he still continued to advance 

0 

eastward, the Macedonians repeatedly expressed their dis¬ 
content with the insatiable ambition of their king; but 
he nevertheless pushed onward, for the wondrous country 
beyond the Indus, about which so many marvellous tales 
were current, seems to have had irresistible attractions for 
him. He crossed the Indus in b. c. 327, not far from 
the modern town of Attok. But the warlike inhabitants 

• t ' * • • j 'v f 

of the Punjaub, excited by their priests, offered a more 
vigorous resistance than the cowardly subjects of the king of 
Persia had done, and Alexander was more than once in immi¬ 
nent danger, as he was always foremost in the assaults upon 
the fortified strongholds of the natives. But the mutual jea¬ 
lousy of the petty chiefs facilitated the conquest of the country 
by the Macedonians. Several, and among them Taxiles, 
whose dominion was situated on the east of the Indus, allied 
themselves with Alexander against Porus, the most powerful 
of the Indian princes on the east of the Hydaspes. The 


330 HISTORY OF GREECE, 

passage of this river, under the very eyes of the enemy, and 
the subsequent battle, in which the brave Porus was wounded 
and taken prisoner, while twenty thousand Indians coveied 
the field of battle, are among the greatest military feats in all 
ancient history. Two newly founded cities, Bucephala, so called 
in honour of Alexander’s charger Bucephalus, and Nicaea, were 
intended to spread Greek civilisation even in India. Alexander 
then continued his march to the river Hyphasis, on the fron¬ 
tiers of the Punjaub, and was making preparations for pene¬ 
trating into the country of the Ganges, which he intended to 
add to his empire. But now the discontent of the Macedo¬ 
nians was expressed so loudly and unreservedly, that Alexander, 
though with great reluctance, resolved to return. Twelve 
stone altars which he erected on the banks of the river, were 
to mark the eastern boundary of his gigantic empire. He 
restored to Porus and the other princes who had entered 
into alliance with him their territories, on condition of their 
recognising his supremacy; and after having undertaken a 
bold expedition against the Malli, and founded a town, Alex¬ 
andria, at the junction of the Hydaspes with the Indus, he 
sailed down with a fleet built on the Hydaspes, in order to 
examine the mouth of the Indus and the ocean. 

9. The result of this voyage of discovery was, that Alex¬ 
ander’s admiral, Nearchus, was ordered to sail with the fleet 
along the coast of the modern Beloochistan, while the king 
himself with his army returned through the fearful Gedrosian 
desert, where the burning heat of the sun, and the want of water 
in a sea of dust and sand, combined with hunger and fatigue, 
in the course of two months, b. c. 326, destroyed three-fourths 
of his army. The warriors who in so many battles had braved 
all dangers, there died a miserable death in the desert. Alex¬ 
ander, it is true, shared all hardships and dangers with the 
meanest of his soldiers, and cheered the survivors with pre¬ 
sents and festivals when they had escaped from the desert; but 


Alexander’s measures in Persia. 33] 

tlie undertaking bad nevertheless .been reckless in the highest 
degree, and the excess in which his men indulged after their 
escape, was almost as fatal as had been their previous want. 

10. When Alexander reached Persia, b. c. 325, he dismissed 
the Macedonian veterans who had become unfit for further ser¬ 
vice, with rich presents, under the command of Craterus, who 
led them back to Europe. Many of the men whom he had 
appointed satraps before going to India had committed various 
acts of oppression, in the belief that Alexander would never 
return ; but all these were now taken to account and punished, 
and the king set about the task of uniting the conquered 
nations with the conquerors into one great nation, to be 
kept together by the bond of Greek civilisation. With this 
object in view, it is said, he did not treat the Persians as a 
conquered people, but endeavoured to win them by mild treat¬ 
ment, and by respecting their national customs and ideas. It 
may, however, be doubted whether the means he adopted 
were calculated to produce the desired effect, and whether 
his object was not rather to change his Macedonians and 
Greeks into obedient and servile Asiatics. At all events, his 
adopting the style and pomp of an eastern monarch, his sur¬ 
rounding himself with Persian attendants, and his exacting 
from the Macedonians the prostration and adoration which 
eastern nations were, and still are, in the habit of showing to 
their rulers, can scarcely be called a means of hellenizing the 
Orientals. The union between the East and the West was 
consolidated by intermarriages. Alexander himself set the 
example, by taking a second wife, Barsine, the eldest daugh¬ 
ter of Darius ; about eighty of his generals received Asiatic 
wives, assigned to^ them by their king, and ten thousand 
other Macedonians chose Persian women for their wives, with 
whom they received rich dowries from the king. The solemnities 
of these marriages occupied five days, and were accompanied 
by the most brilliant festivities and amusements. But these 


332 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


measures, while no doubt they pleased some, at the same time 
offended the feelings of many Macedonians and Greeks, who 
could not brook the idea of the conquered barbarians being 
raised to an equality with themselves. A mutiny broke out 
in b. c. 324, during a review of the troops at Opis; but the 
king quelled the rebellion, partly by severity and partly by 
prudence. Philotus, the head of the malcontents, was put to 
death, and his aged father Parmenio was murdered at Ecbatana. 

11. Whatever may have been Alexander's motives when 
he first adopted the Persian court ceremonial, certain it is, 
that afterwards he retained it because it gratified his personal 
feelings to see himself worshipped as a demigod, and to be 
approached with servile prostration. In these feelings he 
was confirmed by base flatterers and sophists, while more 
honest men, such as the philosopher Callisthenes, who openly 
rebuked the king for his conduct, were treated with revolting 
cruelty. His court at Babylon, which he chose as the capital of 
his empire, in b. c. 324, was of the most brilliant kind, and 
ambassadors appeared before him from the remotest parts of the 
world to do homage to the conqueror of Asia. Among other 
nations of western Europe, the Romans also are said to have 
honoured him with an embassy. His name must at that time 
have been familiar to all nations, from the borders of China 
to the shores of the Atlantic. Banquets and drunken riots 
followed one another in rapid succession, and under such 
exciting influences the king sometimes committed acts of which 
he afterwards bitterly repented, such as the murder of his 
brave general Cleitus, who had saved his life in the battle 
on the river Granicus, but had now provoked the king’s 
anger during a banquet, by ridicule and # scorn. Alexander 
did not intend to rest satisfied with the conquests he had 
already made ; he was engaged at Babylon with vast schemes 
for fresh enterprises, as well as with the establishment of use¬ 
ful institutions in various parts of his enormous empire. He 


INFLUENCE OF ALEXANDER. 


333 


contemplated the conquest of Arabia, Africa, Sicily, Italy, 
and Spain. But his body sank under the excitements and 
exertions required for the superintendence of his great prepa¬ 
rations. About the middle of the year b. c. 323, he was 
attacked by a fever, which terminated his life in the course 
of eleven days, at the early age of thirty-two years. He died 
without having appointed a successor, but is said to have given 
his seal-ring to Perdiccas, and when asked to whom he left his 
empire, to have replied, “ to the most worthy.” His body was 
embalmed, and in b. c. 321, it was conveyed to Alexandria 
in Egypt, the greatest and most important of all his colonies. 

12. Alexander does not belong to the history of Mace¬ 
donia or Greece only; from China to the British islands, his 
name appears in the history or early poetry of every country. 
In the East he is still the hero of ancient times, and the 
tales of the exploits of Iscander are still listened to with 
delight by the people of Asia. Upon that country in par¬ 
ticular his conquests made a lasting impression; for although 
his empire was dismembered after his death, the Greek colo¬ 
nies he had founded there long survived him; and from the 
ruins of his empire, kingdoms were formed as far as India, 
which maintained themselves for centuries. New fields were 
opened to science and discovery, and it is mainly due to him 
that eastern Asia became accessible to European enterprise. 
Asia Minor, and Egypt in particular, became the centres of 
all intellectual and literary life, as well as of commerce 
and industry. Geography and ethnology were extended 
and corrected; the military art was improved by the assist¬ 
ance of mathematical science, though the use of elephants in 
war, which was imported into Europe from the East, was 
rather a step backward towards the clumsy method of eastern 
warfare. The practical sciences, especially mathematics, mecha¬ 
nics and natural history, upon the extension of which Alex¬ 
ander had spent large sums, received new forms and a broader 


334 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


basis. The fine arts and literature, on the other hand, sank 
more and more; the age was one of reflection rather than 
production, and the influence of the East soon became mani¬ 
fest in the colossal and fantastic productions of art. 

13. While Alexander was engaged in the conquest of Asia, 
Agis III., king of Sparta, in b. c. 333, put himself at the head of 
a Peloponnesian confederacy, to throw off the Macedonian yoke, 
and connections were formed with the satraps Pharnabazus and 
Autophradates, the successors of Memnon, who furnished the 
Greeks with ships and money. The Athenians also resolved 
to support the insurgent Greeks with a fleet of one hun¬ 
dred galleys; but the decree was cancelled, on the suggestion 
of Demades, because the money was wanted for the amusement 
of the people. Athens accordingly remained quiet, and Alex¬ 
ander on several occasions showed his respect to the Athenians 
by sending them reports of his victories, presents of suits of Per¬ 
sian armour, and the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, 
which had been carried away from Athens by the Persians. 
Agis gained a victory in b. c. 331 over the Megalopolitans, 
who had refused to join the confederacy, and this gave fresh 
courage to the Greeks. But Antipater, the regent of Mace¬ 
donia, who had in the meantime received large sums of money 
from Asia, invaded Peloponnesus with an army of forty thou¬ 
sand men. A great and decisive battle was fought near 
iEgae, not far from Megalopolis, in which the Spartans, not¬ 
withstanding their great valour, were overpowered and lost not 
only their king, but upwards of five thousand brave soldiers. 
Sparta, thus humbled, sued for peace and pardon ; and the con¬ 
gress of Corinth, to which her requests were referred, decreed 
that she should join the Greek confederacy, and pay one hun¬ 
dred and twenty talents as an indemnification to Megalopolis. 

14. Greece now remained quiet for some years, until the 
news of Alexander’s death was the signal for fresh struggles 
in all parts of the empire. Shortly before his death, in 


HARPALUS. 


335 


b. c. 324, Alexander himself had thrown a firebrand into 
Greece, by a proclamation which he caused to be made at 
the Olympic games, ordering that all the exiles should be 
restored to their respective homes in Greece. The Thebans 
alone w r ere excepted from this apparent amnesty—the real 
object of which, however, was to strengthen the Macedonian 
party in those states of Greece, the fidelity of which could not 
be trusted. The property of the twenty thousand exiles to 
whom the proclamation referred, had in the meantime passed 
into other hands, and the message accordingly created great 
exasperation and opposition. An embassy sent to Babylon 
to remonstrate with the king produced no effect, and open 
resistance was thought of. This feeling was fostered by Har- 
palus, Alexander's treasurer, who a little before had secretly 
quitted Asia with a large sum of money, thirty ships, and six 
thousand mercenaries. Leaving the greater part of his treasures 
at Taenaron in Laconia, he proceeded to Athens, where many 
were found willing to avail themselves of his money against 
Macedonia. But as Antipater demanded his surrender, Har- 
palus made his escape, and taking with him his treasures from 
Taenaron, he went to Crete, where he was slain by a Lace¬ 
daemonian, who fled with his money to Cyrene. The Athe¬ 
nians, alarmed by the threats of Antipater, instituted inquiries 
to discover who had accepted money from Harpalus. Many 
men of note became implicated, and among them was Demos¬ 
thenes, who was sentenced to pay a fine of fifty talents, and, 
being unable to raise that sum, fled to iEgina, and thence to 
Troezen, where he remained in exile until, soon after, he was 
recalled by his fellow-citizens; but he never ceased to exert 
himself for the independence of Greece. 

15. When at length the news arrived that Alexander had 
died at Babylon, the Athenian people in their delight dis¬ 
regarded the warnings and admonitions of men of experience 
and property who were, on the whole, favourable to Macedonia, 


336 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


because peace was maintained under its supremacy, and peace 
at any price seems to have been tbeir motto. Just at this 
time Leostkenes, an Athenian of great military renown, hap¬ 
pened to arrive from Asia with a body of eight thousand 
mercenaries, and by the request of the Athenians retained 
them, until the necessary preparations for open war could be 
completed. The friends of Macedonia were expelled, and on 
the recommendation of the orator Hyperides and a few other 
enthusiastic patriots, the Athenians resolved to equip a large 
fleet, and all Greeks were called upon to assert their indepen¬ 
dence. Many refused to join from jealousy of Athens, but an 
army was nevertheless raised, amounting to thirty thousand 
men, to which Athens and the iEtolians furnished the largest 
contingents. Leosthenes was appointed commander of the 
allied troops, and after having forced his passage through 
Boeotia, he took possession of the pass of Thermopylae. 
Antipater was in a difficult position, for the Illyrians and 
Thracians were likewise rising against Macedonia; but he 
quickly invaded Thessaly, and at the same time sent to Asia for 
reinforcements. When the hostile armies met near the Tra- 
chinian Heracleia, the Thessalian cavalry went over to Leos¬ 
thenes, and Antipater was obliged to retreat. He threw 
himself into the town of Lamia, and being besieged by Leos¬ 
thenes, made proposals of peace. The Athenians flushed 
with their success demanded the unconditional surrender of 
the regent. This, however, was refused, and events imme¬ 
diately occurred which changed the aspect of affairs. The 
iEtolians left the allied army, because they had to look after 
their own affairs at home, and Leosthenes died in consequence 
of a wound he had received at Lamia. He was succeeded in 
the command by the youthful Antipkilus. Meantime Leon- 
natus having arrived with a large force from Asia, and 
entered Thessaly, Antipkilus raised the siege of Lamia and 
xought a pitched battle against the troops of Leonnatus, who 


THE LA MIAN WAR. 


337 


was himself slain. Antipater escaping from Lamia, rallied 
his troops in Thessaly, and being joined by Craterus, who 
had likewise arrived from Asia, he fought a great battle 
near Crannon, b.c. 322. The Macedonians gained the day, 
and the Athenian army was twice defeated by that of 
Macedonia. The towns of Thessaly surrendered at once, the 
allied forces dispersed, and each state concluded peace for 
itself. The AEtolians and Athenians alone remained in arms. 

16. Antipater now advanced into Boeotia, demanding 
of the Athenians to surrender the enemies of Macedonia. 
Demosthenes, Hyperides, and other patriots took to flight. 
Several embassies were sent to Antipater to obtain favourable 
terms, but the conqueror insisted upon Athens surrendering 
at discretion, delivering up the leaders of the anti-Macedonian 
party, paying the expenses of the war, and receiving a Mace¬ 
donian garrison in Munychia. The Athenians were obliged 
to submit, and after the garrison had entered Munychia, 
their democratic form of government was changed into a 
timocracy, in which only nine thousand citizens retained the 
franchise. Many thousands quitted the city and went into 
exile. The patriots who had taken to flight were in their 
absence sentenced to death. Demosthenes, the noblest and 
purest of them, had taken refuge in the temple of Poseidon, in 
the island of Calaureia, where, on discovering that he was no 
longer safe, he took poison which he had for some time been 
carrying about with him. The war which was thus brought 
to a close is generally called the Lamian; in it Athens lost 
her freedom and her constitution. After having humbled 
Athens, Antipater and Craterus set out against the iEtolians; 
but before they could effect anything, they were obliged to 
give up the undertaking, in consequence of the disturbances 
which had broken out in Asia. 


z 


338 


CHAPTER XII. 

*. ■ 

THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER, UNTIL THE TIME OF THE 

ACHAEAN LEAGUE. 

1. As Alexander had left no heir capable of filling the 
throne, there being only his weak-minded brother Arrhidaeus, 
and two infant sons, the youngest of whom was not born till 
after the king’s death, his vast empire broke to pieces more 
rapidly than it had been conquered. After many and bloody 
wars, in the course of which the whole family of Alexander 
was extirpated, and the most sacred ties of nature rent asunder 
and trodden under foot, his generals took possession of the 
separate countries of which the empire was composed, and 
raised them to the rank of independent kingdoms. At first 
Perdiccas, to whom Alexander is said to have given his seal 
ring, enjoyed the highest authority, and undertook the office 
of regent of the whole empire for Arrhidaeus. But when, in 
conjunction with the brave and prudent Eumenes, he made 
war upon Ptolemy, the governor of Egypt, he was murdered 
by his own soldiers at Memphis in b.c. 321. After this, 
Antigonus, a warlike and very talented general, acquired the 
greatest power in Asia Minor, and undertook a new division 
of the empire, while the rough but honest Antipater, and his 
domineering son Cassander, kept Macedonia and Greece in 
their hands. Antipater died in b.c. 318, having appointed 
the aged Polysperchon, an Epirot prince, his successor and 
guardian of the royal family, who were kept at Pella in a 
sort of splendid captivity. But Cassander, Antipater’s son, 
in b. c. 315, deprived Polysperchon of his position, and caused 
Alexander’s mother Olympias, who had in b. c. 317 murdered 
Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice, to be stoned to death; 


STRUGGLES AMONG THE SUCCESSORS. 


389 


some years later, b. c. 311, he put to death Roxana with her 
young son Alexander, and in b. c. 309, caused Heracles, a 
son of Alexander by Barsine, to he strangled during a banquet. 
Thus every member of the family of the great conqueror died 
a violent death, and the fate of some was truly tragic. 

2. Meanwhile, the armies of Antigonus were fighting in 
Asia against Eumenes, and the power of the former was still 
on the increase, when Eumenes, after a fierce struggle of 
several years, in which the chivalrous Craterus also had fallen, 
was taken prisoner by him, and died in a dungeon, b. c. 316. 
Antigonus now took possession of the treasures at Susa, and 
increased the number of his mercenaries so much, that he was 
able to bid defiance to all the other generals, and compel 
them to acknowledge him as regent of the empire, and as 
their master. But as it soon became evident that he aimed 
at nothing short of the empire of Alexander, and as he deprived 
his ally Seleucus of the governorship of Babylonia, the four 
most powerful generals, Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus (who 
had put himself in possession of Thrace), and Cassander, 
allied themselves against Antigonus and his son Demetrius, who 
afterwards obtained the surname of Poliorcetes. This led to a 
general and long protracted war against Antigonus, b. c. 315, 
which was carried on with varying success in Asia and Europe, 
and terminated in b. c. 311. Towards the close of it, in 
b. c. 312, Seleucus, after a victory over Demetrius at Gaza, 
succeeded in establishing himself in Babylonia and the east¬ 
ern provinces, and this year accordingly is the first of what 
is called the era of the Seleucidae, who governed the Syrian 
empire until b. c. 65. In the peace concluded in b. c. 311, 
the whole empire of Alexander was parcelled out among 
the competitors. Some years later, a fresh war broke out, 
in which Ptolemy suffered a great defeat near Salamis in 
Cyprus, b. c. 306, whereupon Antigonus and Demetrius 
assumed the title of king in their dominions. Their opponents, 


340 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Cassander, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus did the same. But an 
unsuccessful attack made by Antigonus upon Egypt, and the 
heroic defence of Rhodes against Demetrius, who, though a 
master in all the arts of besieging, was unable to conquer the 
city, kept matters for some years in a state of uncertainty, 
until, in b. c. 301, the great battle of Ipsus in Phrygia decided 
the case in favour of the three adversaries of Antigonus, who 
himself fell at the advanced age of 80, while his son Deme¬ 
trius was obliged to take to flight. In the peace which was 
then concluded, Macedonia, Thrace, Syria, and Egypt, were 
recognised as four independent kingdoms. 

3. During these wars among the successors of Alexander, 
Greece was not in the enjoyment of peace, and Athens in 
particular experienced several times a change of masters. 
During the quarrel between Polysperchon and Cassander, the 
former, in order to attach the Greeks to himself, proclaimed 
the freedom of the Greek states, the restoration of democracy, 
and the recall of the exiles. Nicanor, who had been appointed 
by Cassander commander of the Macedonian garrison at Muny- 
chia, refused to evacuate the place, and was supported by the 
aristocratic party at Athens, who were favourable to Macedo¬ 
nia. Phocion also assisted him. Polysperchon at length 
sent his own son Alexander with an army against Nicanor, 
hut without effect. The democratic party at Athens natu¬ 
rally favoured Polysperchon, and its leaders accused Phocion 
and his friends of high treason, in consequence of which he 
was sentenced to death, and in b. c. 317 cheerfully drank the 
fatal hemlock. Soon afterwards, Cassander, who had in the 
meantime collected money, ships, and mercenaries in Asia, 
entered Piraeus. Polysperchon also appeared, hut, leaving his 
son Alexander to carry on the operations against Cassander, he 
marched into Peloponnesus with an army of twenty thousand 
men, and conquered the whole of the peninsula, with the excep¬ 
tion of Megalopolis. The Athenians being pressed by two 


FATE OF GREECE DURING THE STRUGGLES. 


341 


hostile armies, concluded peace with Cassander, in which their 
independence was secured, and their franchise extended. At 
the same time, however, Cassander appointed Demetrius of 
Phaleron, a celebrated and popular orator, governor of Athens. 
His administration lasted from b. c. 318 till 307, during which 
period the prosperity of Athens visibly revived. The popu¬ 
larity and admiration which he at first enjoyed, is manifest 
from the fact, that the people erected three hundred and sixty 
statues to him; hut his subsequent extravagance made him 
more odious even than a tyrant. 

4. During the struggles among the generals of Alexander, 
Greece was always the bone of contention. Antigonus, like 
Polysperchon, was anxious to win the favour of the Greeks, 
and with this view declared himself the champion of the 
independence of Greece, and of the members of the royal 
family; in b. c. 314, Ptolemy also declared the Greeks to be 
free. But such proclamations were mere words, as none had the 
power of giving effect to them. Cassander, however, by order¬ 
ing, in b. c. 315, Thebes to be rebuilt, gained more popularity 
than the others did by their high-sounding but empty pro¬ 
clamations. He also reconciled himself with Polysperchon, 
after the death of his son Alexander, by assigning to him the 
supreme military command in Peloponnesus, where the Mace¬ 
donian power was weakened by Antigonus. While the struggle 
was thus going on in Peloponnesus, Ptolemy appeared in 
Greece, b. c. 312, and took Euboea, Boeotia, Phocis, and 
Locris from Cassander, who was thus obliged to abandon 
Greece, and return to Macedonia. In the general peace of 
b.c. 311, the independence of Greece had been guaranteed; but 
the terms of that peace were kept only so long as it suited the 
interest of the contracting parties. Cassander, however, being 
ruler of Macedonia, possessed great influence in the affairs of 
Greece, until, in b. c. 308, he came to an arrangement with 
Ptolemy, in which it was agreed that both parties should 


342 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


remain in the undisturbed possession of those parts of Greece 
which they had conquered. 

5. When Demetrius of Phaleron had governed Athens for 
about ten years in the name of Cassander, and had by his 
reckless conduct become as detested as he had before been 
admired, Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, suddenly appeared 
with a large fleet before Piraeus, proclaiming himself the 
champion of freedom, and promising to restore to the Athenians 
their democratic form of government, b. c. 307. He was 
received with great enthusiasm, and Demetrius of Phaleron, 
who was allowed to depart in safety, went to Thebes, and 
afterwards to Ptolemy, in Egypt. Munychia, however, had 
to be conquered by force of arms. Demetrius now restored 
to the Athenians their ancient democratic constitution, and 
caused vast quantities of corn to be distributed among the 
people. The grateful Athenians overwhelmed both father 
and son with the most extravagant honours, and even wor¬ 
shipped them as gods. But this joyous enthusiasm did not 
last long; Demetrius soon after quitted Athens, the scene 
of his great triumph, and, hurrying from one enterprise to 
another, was in the end taken prisoner, and died as an exile 
in Syria. When Athens had recovered her popular govern¬ 
ment, the democratic and Macedonian parties immediately 
renewed their struggles. The popular or patriotic party urns 
headed by Demochares, a son of the sister of Demosthenes, 
a sincere and honest lover of his country and its constitu¬ 
tion. Severe measures were adopted to protect the liberty 
of the people against unpatriotic influences, but it was to nc 
purpose: the dream of freedom soon vanished. While Deme¬ 
trius Poliorcetes was engaged in the East, the Macedonians 
recovered their ascendancy in Greece. Polysperchon, who had 
been kept employed in Peloponnesus by Cassander, conquered 
the greater part of the peninsula, and Cassander invading 
Attica, laid siege to Athens. The city was ably defended by 


DEMETRIUS POLIORCETES. 


343 


the noble Demochares; but in the meantime, Demetrius 
Poliorcetes, after concluding peace with the Rhodians, arrived 
with a large fleet at Aulis, and by a rapid succession of victo¬ 
ries, put an end to the government of Cassander in Greece. 
The towns thus delivered from the Macedonian yoke vied 
with one another in showering honours upon Demetrius, and 
at a congress held in Corinth he received the supreme com¬ 
mand over all Greece. But he had by this time become an 
insolent and voluptuous tyrant, and his short stay at Athens, 
during which he exiled the patriotic Demochares, was not 
calculated to regain for him the affections of the people. 

6. Just at the time when Demetrius was proceeding north- 
w r ard against Cassander, he was recalled to Asia by his father 
Antigonus, against whom, as has been already noticed, a 
coalition had been formed by Cassander, Ptolemy, Seleucus, 
and Lysimachus. The result of this was the decisive battle 
of Ipsus, b. c. 301, in which Antigonus lost his life, and his 
kingdom was divided between Lysimachus and Seleucus. 
Demetrius fled to Greece, where he hoped to establish a new 
kingdom for himself; but as the Athenians refused to admit 
him within their walls, and as nearly all Peloponnesus had 
declared in favour of Cassander, he went to Thrace, where 
he took the Chersonesus from Lysimachus, and allied him¬ 
self with Seleucus of Syria, by whose aid he gained several 
advantages in Asia. In the meantime Leochares, supported 
by Cassander, had set himself up as tyrant at Athens, and 
was conducting himself with unexampled fury and cruelty. 
When Demetrius was informed of this, he quickly hastened 
to Athens, and took the city by storm. Ptolemy, who 
had come to assist the tyrant, was obliged to retreat. This 
happened in b. c. 295 ; and Demetrius, on entering the city, 
to the great astonishment of all, pardoned their past con¬ 
duct, and distributed one hundred thousand bushels of grain 
among the famishing people. But to secure himself for 


344 


HISTOIiY OF GREECE. 


the future, he placed strong garrisons at Munychia and 
Piraeus, and fortified the hill of the Museum. He then 
marched into Peloponnesus, and appeared before the gates of 
Sparta, when again he was suddenly obliged to turn his atten¬ 
tion in a different direction. Cassander of Macedonia died in 
b. c. 296, and was succeeded by his son, Philip IV., who, how¬ 
ever, died the year after, leaving the succession disputed by 
his two brothers, Antipater and Alexander. Antipater, the 
elder, killed his mother Thessalonice, a daughter of king 
Philip, because he believed her to favour his brother. Here¬ 
upon Alexander applied for assistance to Pyrrhus, king of 
Epirus, and to Demetrius. In the meantime, Antipater, 
who had fled to Lysimachus for support, was murdered, and 
Alexander, finding the presence of Demetrius in Macedonia 
inconvenient, tried to get rid of him. But Demetrius anti¬ 
cipated him; he slew him, and ascended the throne of 
Macedonia himself, b. c. 294. He then drove Pyrrhus back 
into his own kingdom, and reigned for a period of seven years, 
during which nearly all Greece paid homage to him and his 
son Antigonus Gonatas. Not satisfied with his empire, he 
formed the plan of reconquering what he and his father had 
lost in Asia. Pyrrhus was induced to make war against him 
by the princes whose dominions were threatened by Demetrius; 
and when the armies met, the troops of Demetrius went over to 
Pyrrhus, who was extremely popular in Macedonia. Pyrrhus 
now took possession of the throne, b. c. 287 ; but after the lapse 
of seven months, he too was expelled by Lysimachus, who then 
ruled over Macedonia for five years, from b. c. 286 to 281. 
Demetrius never returned to Macedonia; but after various 
misfortunes, he died as a prisoner of Seleucus in Syria, b. c. 283. 

7. At the time when Pyrrhus was raised to the throne of 
Macedonia, Athens again rose to assert her freedom. The 
Museum was stormed, the garrisons were expelled from the 
port-towns, and the Macedonians were defeated near Eleusis. 


LYSIMACHUS. 


345 


Pyrrhus, who was well disposed towards the Athenians, 
allowed them the enjoyment of their ancient freedom. Demo- 
chares, returning from exile, managed the affairs of his 
country till about b. c. 280 in the most admirable manner, 
and for a time Athens once more enjoyed the happiness of 
former and better days. Lysimachus concluded a treaty of 
friendship with her, and did not interfere with her adminis¬ 
tration, in which law and order had been restored. After 
expelling Pyrrhus, he united Macedonia with his dominions 
in Thrace and Asia, but domestic misfortunes brought about 
his downfall. At the instigation of his second wife Arsinoe, 
he put to death his excellent son Agathocles, whose wife 
Lysandra fled to Seleucus imploring him to avenge the death 
of her husband. In the ensuing war, a decisive battle was 
fought, in b. c. 281, at Cyrupedion near Sardes, in which 
Lysimachus was defeated and killed. Seleucus was now 
anxious to gain possession of Macedonia and Thrace, hut w’as 
assassinated near Lysimachia on the Hellespont by Ptolemy 
Ceraunus, a son of Ptolemy Soter, who had been deprived of 
the succession in Egypt by the intrigues of his mother Bere¬ 
nice. Ptolemy Ceraunus now ascended the throne of Mace¬ 
donia, compelled the widow of Lysimachus to marry him, and 
caused her children to be murdered before her own eyes. 
But he did not enjoy his bloody tyranny more than two years. 

8. This was the time of a great migration of the Celts, 
some of whom came down upon the plains of Lombardy, 
while others descended into the peninsula south of mount 
Haemus. In b. c. 280 a swarm of them invaded Macedonia, 
and in an engagement with them Ptolemy Ceraunus lost 
his life; but Sosthenes, the brave Macedonian general, 
checked their victorious progress. Another army, however, 
of the same race of barbarians marched southward with the 
intention of plundering the temple of Delphi, while one detach¬ 
ment marched into iEtolia. The Greeks were resolved to 


346 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


defend themselves against the invading hordes. When the 
barbarians approached Delphi, in b.c. 279, they are said to 
have been terror-struck by the same miraculous phenomena 
which had saved that city during the invasion of Xerxes. 
They suffered immensely, their king Brennus fell, and the 
remaining hosts dispersed, some settling on the Danube, others 
in Thrace, and others again crossing over into Asia Minor, 
where in after times they were known by the name of the 
Galatians. 

9. After the fall of Ptolemy Ceraunus, in b. c. 280, 
Antigonus Gonatas ascended the throne of Macedonia, of 
which he maintained possession until his death in b. c. 239, 
with the interruption of a period of two years (b. c. 274-272), 
during which Pyrrhus, after his return from Italy, occupied it; 
but when Pyrrhus had fallen at Argos, Antigonus remained 
the acknowledged ruler of the kingdom and of Greece, though 
in the latter country his authority had to be established by 
force of arms, and even this succeeded only partially. As 
soon as peace and order were restored in Macedonia, he had 
to undertake a war against Athens, which had recovered its 
independence during the first reign of Pyrrhus. The war 
broke out in b. c. 269, apparently because the Athenians 
refused to admit a Macedonian garrison. Although they were 
supported by Sparta and the king of Egypt, they were com¬ 
pelled, in b. c. 262, after a siege of seven years, to surrender, 
and Macedonian garrisons again entered Munychia, Piraeus, 
and the Museum. But Antigonus treated the city with com¬ 
parative mildness, for he did not interfere with its democratic 
constitution, and soon afterwards even evacuated the Museum. 
The presence of the garrisons in the port-towns, however, daily 
reminded the Athenians of their real condition. This state 
of things lasted until b. c. 229, when Aratus, then at the 
head of the Achaean league, prevailed upon the Macedonian 
commander, by means of a bribe, to evacuate the port-towns. 


SPARTA. 


347 


Athens then, though free, was politically too weak to join the 
Achaean league, as Aratus wished. But she nevertheless 
remained the intellectual centre of Greece, and it was owing 
in a great measure to her influence that Rhodes, Alexandria, 
Antioch, and Pergamus began to foster and cherish the arts 
and literature of Greece. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

MACEDONIA AND GREECE, DOWN TO THEIR CONQUEST 

BY THE ROMANS. 

1. After her struggle with Antigonus Gonatas, Athens 
withdrew from the scene of great • political events; but 
Sparta had still to pass through a succession of violent 
changes and revolutions, which both darken and brighten the 
last period of her history. The ancient constitution of 
Lycurgus was still the law of Sparta, but its observance was a 
mere matter of form; its spirit had long ceased to exercise any 
influence upon the Spartans. The ephors had become the 
highest authority in the state, and the kings, who were little 
more than the representatives of two ancient families, some¬ 
times went out as commanders of bands of adventurers, and 
sold their services to foreign states. The number of Spartan 
citizens had become enormously reduced, and all the wealth 
of the country was possessed by a few families, and in some 
instances had fallen into the hands of women, who, as 
wealthy heiresses, attracted more attention and exercised 
more influence than was compatible with the good of the 
state. Although, throughout the Macedonian period, Sparta 
had with a considerable degree of firmness resisted the 
demands of the Macedonian rulers, still she did nothing for 



348 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


the liberation of Greece, and in the time of Demetrius, she 
escaped being conquered by him only by an accident. Sparta 
was then surrounded by walls, which alone shews that the 
ancient spirit of its citizens was gone. Once only, during the 
invasion of Peloponnesus by Pyrrhus, the Spartans showed 
that their ancient valour had not quite vanished. 

2. This wretched condition of the state induced king 
Agis IV. (b.c. 244-241) to attempt a thorough reform of the 
constitution. Supported by the ephor Lycurgus and the 
younger generation of the Spartans, he carried several laws 
to relieve the poor, who were overwhelmed with debt; a 
fresh division of the land was to be made; four thousand 
five hundred lots were to be set apart for the Spartans, 
whose numbers were to be supplemented by Laconians, and 
fifteen thousand for the Laconians. This and other measures 
were meant to revive the spirit of the ancient constitution. 
His colleague Leonidas, who opposed the reforms, was deposed 
and sent across the frontier, and all obstacles seemed to be 
removed. But during an expedition which Agis undertook 
against the Achaeans, Leonidas was recalled by a party at 
Sparta, and Agis on his return was treacherously seized and 
put to death, together with his mother and grandmother. His 
wife Agiatis, who was as enthusiastic for reforms as her husband 
had been, afterwards married Cleomenes III. (b.c. 236-220), 
the last Heracleid king. Cleomenes now completed by force 
the work commenced by Agis. He began by causing the 
ephors to be murdered, and then carried the cancelling of 
debts and the distribution of the land without opposition. 
Everything went on successfully and promised the return of 
a happy age, when a war with the Achaean league brought 
about the downfall of Cleomenes and of Sparta. 

3. Throughout the historical period of Greece, the 
Achaeans had acted a subordinate part; but at the time of the 
Macedonian domination they appear to have conceived the 


THE ACHAEAN LEAGUE. 


349 


idea that union alone could save Greece, and prevent 
the country from becoming a mere province of Macedonia. 
Twelve towns of Achaia had from early times formed a sort 
of loose confederacy; but in b.c. 280 four of them drew more 
closely together for the express purpose of driving the Mace¬ 
donians from Peloponnesus. In b.c. 275 other towns joined 
the league, the importance of which continued to increase, 
until it reached its most flourishing point in b.c. 251, when 
Aratus became its strategus, and united his native city of 
Sicyon with the confederacy. According to the constitution 
of the league, all the members formed one state, at the head 
of which was a strategus, the central government being at 
iEgion. The cities composing the league, both large and 
small, had one vote each, and sent their deputies annually. 
The strategus, who had the executive and the supreme com¬ 
mand in war, was assisted by two other officers, the hipparchus 
and the secretary, and by a senate, in which each town was 
represented by one deputy. This league and its constitution, 
though it was not free from serious defects, and the conduct 
of the best of its strategi, continued for a comparatively long 
period to enjoy the respect of foreign powers as well as of the 
Greeks themselves. 

4. A similar league was formed among the iEtolians about 
the same time; hut its objects were not so patriotic, for the 
iEtolians did not look beyond the promotion of their own 
interests. The iEtolians were distinguished for their bra¬ 
very and energy; hut had remained behind in the career of 
Greek civilisation, and were in fact semi-barbarians. The 
constitution of their league resembled that of the Achaeans, 
and was essentially democratic ; its annual meetings were held 
at Thermos. The power of this league rose very rapidly, for 
Phocis, the Ozolian Locrians, the Cephallenian islands, and 
portions of Acarnania, Thessaly, and Peloponnesus, belonged to 
it. The iEtolians, like the Achaeans, pretended indeed to fight 


350 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


against foreign influence and on behalf of the independence 
of Greece, but they were rude, quarrelsome, faithless, and, 
above all, bent upon plunder and rapine. 

5. From the year b. c. 251, Aratus was the soul of the 
Achaean league, even when he was not invested with the 
office of strategus, to which he was elected twelve times. The 
object which he steadily pursued was to destroy the power of 
the tyrants who, during that period, set themselves up in 
nearly all the Greek cities under the protection of Macedonia, 
and to unite all Peloponnesus under one democratic constitu¬ 
tion. He effected much as a statesman by his prudence and 
eloquence, but he was wanting in resolution and personal 
courage. In b. c. 243, when he was strategus for the second 
time, he expelled the Macedonian garrison from Acrocorinthus, 
and prevailed upon the Corinthians, and soon afterwards upon 
the Megarians, to join the Achaean confederacy. About the 
year b. c. 226, when Aratus was strategus for the eleventh 
time, the league had gained, besides, the towns of Troezen, 
Epidaurus, Phlius, Hermione, and Argos. Three years before, 
he had delivered Athens from its Macedonian garrison, though 
that city was not able to join the confederacy. During this 
period the iEtolians evinced a spirit hostile to the Achaeans, 
and even went so far as to conclude a treaty with Antigonus 
Gonatas about a division of Achaia. In the meantime the 
reforms of Cleomenes not only strengthened Sparta internally, 
but increased her power and influence among the neighbour¬ 
ing states of Peloponnesus. Argos and Mantineia were sub¬ 
dued, and Cleomenes strove to recover for Sparta her ancient 
supremacy in the peninsula. Sparta thus aimed at the same 
object as Aratus, and a conflict was unavoidable. Neither 
party was willing to give way, and in b. c. 224 the Achaeans 
not only resolved upon war against Sparta, but Aratus so far 
forgot the objects of the Achaean league as to solicit the aid 
of Macedonia. 


ANTIGONUS DOSON. 


351 


6, Antigonus Gonatas, king of Macedonia, had died in 
b. c. 239, and had been succeeded by his son Demetrius, who 
reigned until b. c. 229. At his death, his son Philip was 
still under age, and the guardianship was undertaken by 
Antigonus Doson, who faithfully discharged his duties as 
regent and guardian until b. c. 220, when Philip ascended the 
throne. Aratus had been in negotiation with Antigonus 
Doson even before war was declared against Sparta, and the 
king had readily promised his assistance. When the war 
broke out, Cleomeneswas eminently successful, and defeated the 
Achaeans in three battles. Many towns fell into his hands, and 
he then laid siege to Acrocorinthus. He neglected no opportunity 
of offering to enter into negotiations for peace; but Aratus was 
short-sighted enough to surrender Acrocorinthus to Antigonus 
Doson, who demanded that fortress as a pledge and as a point 
from which he might carry on his military operations. As 
the iEtolians were in the possession of the pass of Thermo¬ 
pylae, Antigonus had to take a circuitous route, but when 
he arrived on the Isthmus, his presence changed the whole 
aspect of things. Cleomenes offered a brave resistance, but 
was obliged to return to Sparta in consequence of his wife’s 
death. In the spring of the following year, b. c. 223, 
Antigonus set out for Arcadia, and being joined by the 
Achaeans he took possession of several important towns with¬ 
out Cleomenes being able to prevent it. In the following 
winter, however, the Spartan king gained some advantages, 
and in the spring of b. c. 222, he advanced up to the very 
gates of Argos. But soon after, Antigonus invaded Laconia 
with an army of thirty thousand men. Cleomenes had pitched 
his camp at Sellasia, north of Sparta, and here a great battle 
was fought, b.c. 221, in which Philopoemen of Megalopolis, 
then serving in the army of the Achaeans, decided the 
victory. Cleomenes escaped with only a few horsemen to 
Sparta, but not feeling safe, he sailed to his friend, king 


352 


H1ST0PY OF GREECE. 


Ptolemy III. at Alexandria, by whom he expected to be sup¬ 
ported in continuing the war; but Ptolemy died soon after, 
and his successor, a voluptuous libertine, kept Cleomenes like 
a prisoner. An attempt to excite the people of Alexandria 
against their contemptible ruler failed, and Cleomenes and his 
friends in despair made away with themselves, b. c. 220. His 
mother and children, who had followed him to Alexandria, were 
put to death, and died in a manner worthy of Sparta. After the 
victory of Sellasia, Antigonus took Sparta without resistance. 
Respect for its past glory induced the conqueror to treat 
it with moderation. The ancient constitution was restored, 
and the ephoralty revived ; but the line of Heracleid kings 
had become extinct, and Sparta had to keep a Macedonian 
garrison. Immediately after this Antigonus was recalled to 
Macedonia, which had in his absence been attacked by the 
Illyrians. 

7. The battle of Sellasia had indeed broken the power of 
Sparta, but the independence of the Achaean league was like¬ 
wise gone, for Acrocorinthus, one of the three fetters of Greece, 
remained in the hands of the Macedonians, and the Achaeans 
could undertake nothing without their sanction—and all this 
was the work of the short-sighted policy of Aratus. Anti¬ 
gonus Doson died in b. c. 220, and the throne was then 
occupied by Philip V., the son of Demetrius, who was 
only seventeen years old. He was a quick and enterprising 
young man, who, in the course of his long reign, from b. c. 
220 to 179, displayed great military abilities. The beginning 
of his reign is marked by the outbreak of what is called the 
Social War, which was occasioned by Sparta. Lycurgus 
obtained by purchase from the ephors the dignity of king, and 
after having got rid of the last member of the Heracleid family, 
and constituted himself sole king of Sparta, he entered into 
an alliance with the iEtolians against the Achaeans and 
Macedonians, Aratus took the field against the iEtolians, 


THE SOCIAL WAR. 


353 


who had already invaded Arcadia, but was defeated, and the 
AEtolians meeting with no further opposition returned across 
the Isthmus, ravaging the country as they advanced. This 
happened in b. c. 220, and was the beginning of the Social 
War, in which the Achaeans, supported by Philip, the Boeo¬ 
tians, Phocians, Epirots, Acarnanians, and Messenians, fought 
against the AEtolians, Spartans, and Eleans, for a period of 
three years. In b. c. 219 Philip himself entered AEtoliawith 
an army, and ravaged the country as far as the mouth of the 
Achelous. In the following winter he invaded Elis and 
Arcadia, where he destroyed the strongholds of the AEtolians, 
while they made inroads into Epirus and Achaia. In the 
spring of b.c. 218 Philip again entered AEtolia, and having 
taken Thermos, its capital, traversed Peloponnesus to its 
southernmost point. But when he left the peninsula, the 
AEtolians reduced the Achaeans to great straits; and in addi¬ 
tion to this, Philip, whose attention was attracted by the 
Hannibalian war in Italy, was anxious to get rid of the petty 
disputes among the Greeks, and concluded, in b. c. 217, a 
peace with the AEtolians, who were to surrender to him Acar- 
nania, but retained the undisturbed possession of all other 
places they had conquered. The Achaeans, who were thus 
abandoned to their fate, were naturally displeased with the 
king’s measure. Aratus remonstrated with him for his con¬ 
duct, but was soon after silenced for ever by being poisoned 
by Philip’s orders, b. c. 213. 

8. Philip’s warlike disposition was stimulated by Demetrius 
of Pharos, who, considering himself wronged by the Romans, 
had gone to the court of Macedonia. After the battle of 
Cannae, in b. c. 216, Philip concluded a treaty with Hannibal, 
in consequence of which a Roman fleet was stationed at Taren- 
tum, to protect Italy against an invasion from Macedonia. In 
the following year the Romans gained possession of several 

towns of Illyricum, though the country still remained subject 

2 A 


354 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


to Macedonia. The Romans being too much occupied at home 
to make any great exertions against Philip, stirred up an ene¬ 
my against him in Greece, by concluding a treaty with the .Eto- 
lians, b. c. 211. In this new alliance they were joined by the 
Eleans, Messenians, Lacedaemonians, and by the kings of Illy- 
ricum, Thrace, and Pergamus, while Philip was supported by 
the Achaeans, Boeotians, Thessalians, Acarnanians, Epirots, 
Euboeans, Phocians, Locrians, and by king Prusias of Bithynia. 
Greeks were thus once more arrayed against Greeks, and fight¬ 
ing for the interests of foreigners, who took part in the war only 
when it suited their convenience. This was the work of the 
Romans, who gained several advantages for the iEtolians, and 
urged them on to continue the war, so that the attempts of 
the Athenians, Rhodians, and others to bring about a peace led 
to no results. After the year b. c. 206, the Romans themselves 
ceased to take part in the war; and the consequence was that 
the iEtolians found themselves obliged to conclude peace 
with Philip on his own terms, b. c. 205. At length, b. c. 
204, a peace was also brought about between Philip and the 
Romans, who received some portions of Illyricum, and it was 
stipulated that neither party should attack the allies of the 
other. 

9. While this war was going on in the north, hostilities 
had also been continued in Peloponnesus. In b. c. 208 
Philopoemen was strategus of the Achaeans ; he was distin¬ 
guished both as a statesman and as a general, and acquired 
extraordinary influence over the Achaeans, who were be¬ 
coming weary and indifferent. His first operations were 
directed against Sparta, where, after the death of the usurper 
Lycurgus, in b. c. 211, Machanidas had set himself up as 
tyrant; he had from the first indulged in hostilities against 
the Achaeans, but in b. c. 207 Philopoemen defeated him in 
a great battle near Mantineia. In the same year, Nabis, 
a bloodthirsty monster, usurped the tyrannis at Sparta, and 


SECOND WAR BETWEEN MACEDONIA AND ROME. 355 

made the city feel all the horrors for which the tyrants of that 
period are notorious in Greek history. 

10. The peace which Philip had concluded with the 
Romans does not appear to have been made by him with the 
intention of keeping its terms; for he deprived the young 
Egyptian king Ptolemy Epiphanes of his possessions in the 
north of the iEgean, although he was under the protection of 
Rome, and not long afterwards he laid siege to Athens, in 
consequence of the following circumstances:—Two Acarnanian 
youths, who were staying at Athens, and were believed to 
have profaned the Eleusinian mysteries, were murdered during 
the religious excitement of the people. The Acarnanians 
thereupon, supported by Macedonia, invaded Attica, and 
ravaged the country. The Athenians, being allied with 
Attalus, king of Pergamus, and with the Rhodians, declared 
war against Philip, who forthwith proceeded with a fleet to 
blockade Athens. Assisted by a Roman squadron, the Athe¬ 
nians succeeded in repelling him, in revenge for which he 
destroyed everything he could reach in Attica. The aid of 
Rome, when formally solicited by the Athenians, was not 
withheld, and in b. c. 200 the consul Sulpicius Galba com¬ 
menced the second war of the Romans against Macedonia. 
The two belligerent parties had the same allies as before. 
During the first years the Romans carried on the war without 
energy, but in b. c. 198 T. Quinctius Flamininus undertaking 
the command, at once succeeded in gaining over the Achae- 
ans, so that now both the iEtolians and Achaeans fought 
on the same side. Flamininus advanced from Epirus into 
Thessaly, while Philip withdrew into Macedonia. Negotiations 
were commenced, but as they led to no results, the great 
battle of Cynoscephalae was fought in b. c. 197, which ended 
in the total defeat of Philip—a result mainly owing to the 
valour displayed by the iEtolians during the engagement. 
Peace was then concluded and sanctioned by the Roman 


356 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


senate, in b. c. 196, on condition that Philip should withdraw 
all his garrisons from the Greek cities, the most important of 
which, Acrocorinthus, Demetrias, and Chalcis, were to be occu¬ 
pied by the Romans. The Athenians received the islands of 
Paros, Imbros, Delos, and Scyros, but AEgina was given to 
Attalus. The iEtolians made no secret of their dissatisfaction 
with these arrangements, but openly declared that the fine 
promises of Flamininus about the freedom of Greece were 
without meaning so long as the Romans kept garrisons in the 
three most important fortresses. 

11. In b. c. 196 the Isthmian games happened to be 
celebrated, and Flamininus on that occasion solemnly pro¬ 
claimed before the assembled Greeks the freedom and inde¬ 
pendence of their country. The announcement was received 
with the most extravagant joy and enthusiasm. Flamininus, 
however, remained in Greece, for Antiochus the Great, king 
of Syria, being stirred up by Hannibal, was making great 
preparations for war, and Nabis, the tyrant of Sparta, refused 
to give up Argos. Flamininus, in conjunction with the 
Achaeans, soon succeeded in liberating Argos, and even 
attacked Sparta, while the Rhodian and Pergamenian fleets 
took possession of the maritime towns of Laconia. These 
losses obliged Nabis to submit to a peace, dictated by Flami¬ 
ninus, b. c. 195. He was deprived of the maritime towns, 
which were declared free, and had to pay a heavy sum of 
money, but he nevertheless remained tyrant. As he was 
always hostile to the Achaeans, who had assisted in conquer¬ 
ing him, they complained of the leniency of Flamininus 
towards him, and in this sentiment they were joined by the 
HStolians. In b. c. 194 the Romans indeed evacuated the 
three fortresses, but the iEtolians nevertheless urged Nabis 
on to recover the maritime towns which had been ceded to 
the Achaeans. A war thus arose between the tyrant and the 
Achaeans, and the latter being commanded by Philopoemen, 


THE ^ETOLIAN LEAGUE BROKEN. 


357 


blockaded their enemy in the city of Sparta. The iEtolians, 
who ostensibly came to his succour, murdered him, and took 
possession of the citadel; but the Spartans recovered it by 
storm, and nearly all the iEtolians were cut to pieces. During 
the confusion Philopoemen made himself master of the city 
and of Laconia, and in b. c. 192 added both to the Achaean 
league, which now embraced the whole of Peloponnesus. 

12. The iEtolians entertaining an implacable hatred against 
the Romans,'invited Antiochus, king of Syria, to come to Greece, 
the conquest of which they represented to him as a matter of no 
great difficulty. In b. c. 192 Antiochus arrived, and many of 
the Greeks at once joined him ; but he was not provided with a 
sufficient army, nor did he act with sufficient quickness and de¬ 
cision. In the spring of b.c. 191 he was defeated by the consul 
M.’Acilius Glabrio at Thermopylae, and immediately returned 
to Chalcis, whence he crossed over into Asia. But the Romans 
did not allow his invasion of Greece to pass with impunity, 
as we shall see in the history of Rome. Another victory 
was soon gained over the iEtolians, who were thus compelled 
to sue for peace. A truce was at length, b.c. 190, granted 
to them for six months; and when at the expiration of it 
they recommenced hostilities, the Romans at last, in b. c. 
189, compelled them to accept the following terms:—To 
recognise the supremacy of Rome, to conclude an offensive 
and defensive alliance, to dismiss from their confederacy all 
the towns out of iEtolia, and to pay a heavy sum of money to 
defray the expenses of the war. The power of the iEtolian 
confederacy was thus for ever annihilated, though the league 
continued a weak and helpless existence for a long time 
afterwards. 

13. In b. c. 188, a few years after the capture of Sparta by 
Philopoemen, a fresh war broke out between the Achaeans and 
Spartans, because the latter had taken forcible possession of 
one of the coast towns. Both parties referred the case to Rome, 


358 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


bnt received equivocal answers, until in the end Philopoemen 
restored a number of persons who had been exiled by Nabis, 
put the leaders of the anti-Achaean party to death, and made 
several violent reforms, going even so far as to compel the 
Spartans to abolish the ancient constitution of Lycurgus, and 
establish a democracy. The Spartans bore these wanton 
insults with deep but suppressed indignation, as they were 
unable to offer resistance, or to obtain aid from the Romans. 
In b. c. 183, the Messenians revolted against the Achaeans. 
Philopoemen marched against them; but on his way he 
was surprised and overpowered by some Messenian horse¬ 
men, who conveyed him in a dying state to Messene. The 
enraged Messenians ordered him to be put to death, and he 
drained the poison-cup with calmness and intrepidity. He 
was succeeded in the office of strategus by Lycortas, father 
of the historian Polybius, under whom the Achaeans recon¬ 
quered Messene, and took revenge for the murder of Philo¬ 
poemen, by putting to death the most conspicuous among the 
Messenians. But peace and order were not restored by such 
measures, and the time was fast approaching when the mighty 
hand of Rome was to silence all disputes, by depriving the 
several states of all power of action. 

14. Philip of Macedonia had for a time quietly submitted 
to the humiliating peace dictated to him by the Romans; but 
towards the end of his life he resolved once more to try the 
fortune of war, and made active preparations. He was, how¬ 
ever, prevented from taking decisive steps by a quarrel between 
his two sons, Demetrius and Perseus. The latter persuaded his 
father that Demetrius was conspiring against him, and the 
king was induced to consent to Demetrius being put to death. 
When the king discovered the deceit which had been prac¬ 
tised upon him, he was seized with the deepest grief, and died 
shortly after, b. c. 179, leaving the kingdom to his only sur¬ 
viving son Perseus. The new monarch continued the prepara- 


DOWNFALL OF MACEDONIA. 


359 


tions which had already been commenced, for he hated the 
Romans even more intensely than his father; hut seven years 
elapsed before hostilities were actually begun. Perseus was a 
man of considerable talent, but trusted too much to himself, and 
could not be prevailed upon to part with his money when it was 
required, and these circumstances brought about the final over¬ 
throw of his kingdom. He had formed connections with the 
kings of Illyricum, Thrace, Syria,JBithynia, with the princes and 
towns of Epirus and Thessaly, and even with Carthage and the 
Celtic tribes on the Danube. His plans were admirable. The 
Greeks, except the Boeotian towns, had not the courage to 
join the alliance against Rome. The first three years of the 
war which broke out in b. c. 171, passed away without any 
great advantage being gained by either party, though fortune 
seemed to favour Perseus. This circumstance, and the fact 
that the war was protracted so long, at last excited among 
the Greeks a general feeling in favour of Macedonia; but his 
niggardliness deprived him of his most valuable allies, and 
obliged him to fight single-handed. In b. c. 168, L. iEmilius 
Paullus defeated Perseus with great loss in the decisive battle 
of Pydna. The vanquished king fled with his treasures to 
the island of Samothrace, but was overtaken and surrendered. 
Paullus treated him mildly, but afterwards took him to Italy, 
where he adorned the triumph of his conqueror, and spent 
the remainder of his life in honourable captivity. Macedonia 
was now divided into four independent districts for the pur¬ 
pose of weakening the country; the people had to pay 
tribute, but their form of government was democratic. 

15. During this last Macedonian war, the Achaeans, 
though reluctantly, had fought on the side of the Romans. 
But the miserable party spirit among them induced some of 
their number to denounce a great many as having openly or 
secretly favoured Perseus. These denunciations led to a 
regular inquisition in the Achaean towns, and upwards of one 


360 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


thousand Achaeans, one of whom was Polybius, the historian, 
were sent to Rome to answer for their conduct. But instead 
of being tried they were kept as hostages in Italy, until in 
b. c. 151 the surviving three hundred were allowed to return 
to their country. The iEtolians, who were likewise suspected 
of having favoured Macedonia, were treated with still greater 
severity, for five hundred and fifty of the most distinguished w r ere 
put to death, and many more were carried away into captivity. 

16. The final decision of the fate of Greece was brought 
about by Athens. From mere want and poverty, the Athenians 
plundered Oropos, a town in their own territory. A complaint 
against them was brought before the Roman senate, which 
appointed a commission of Sicyonians to inquire into the matter. 
As the Athenians refused to appear before the commissioners, 
they were sentenced to pay a fine of five hundred talents. 
Being unable to raise this heavy sum they sent ambassadors to 
Rome petitioning the senate to cancel the sentence; and the 
fine was actually reduced to one hundred talents. This hap¬ 
pened in b. c. 155. Soon afterwards the Athenians renewed 
their outrage on Oropos, which now applied for redress to the 
Achaeans. A threatening decree passed against Athens by 
the Achaeans at length secured Oropos from further attacks 
of the Athenians. About the same time the possession of the 
town of Belmina became the cause of fresh hostilities between 
the Achaeans and Lacedaemonians. The Spartans would have 
sustained serious losses had it not been for the treachery of 
the Achaean strategus Democritus, who was succeeded by 
Diaeus, a most implacable enemy of the Romans. In b. c. 
149, Andriscus, a Thracian of low origin, came forward as a 
pretender to the throne of Macedonia, assuming the name 
of Philip, and declaring himself to be a son of the late king 
I’erseus. The man succeeded in making the Macedonians 
believe his story, and, tired of the Roman yoke, they flocked 
around his standard. At first he was successful against the 


DESTRUCTION OF CORINTH. 


361 


Romans ; but in b. c. 148 be was conquered by Caecilius Me¬ 
tellus, whose triumph he afterwards adorned at Rome. Mace¬ 
donia was now constituted a Roman province. While this war 
against the Pseudo-Philip was going on, the Greeks continued 
their petty but bitter hostilities; and Metellus, who wished 
them well, desired them to keep peace, and promised that their 
affairs should be inquired into by a Roman commissioner. But 
when the Roman ambassadors appeared before the assembled 
Achaeans at Corinth, their demand was received with scorn 
and insolence. A second embassy sent by Metellus fared no 
better, and the thoughtless Achaeans declared war against the 
Romans. Metellus, in b. c. 147, after the reduction of Mace¬ 
donia and Thessaly, marched with his army into Boeotia. The 
Achaean strategus Critolaus had intended to occupy Ther¬ 
mopylae, but arrived too late, and was routed near Heracleia. 
He rallied again in Locris, but was defeated a second time, 
and perished in endeavouring to escape. 

17. The Achaeans were in despair; but the time had now 
come when they had to atone for their rash and inconsiderate 
mode of acting. While Metellus was advancing from the north, 
a Roman fleet landed a force in Peloponnesus, which laid 
waste the country. Diaeus assembled the last forces of the 
Achaean league in the neighbourhood of Corinth, and even 
armed a body of twelve thousand slaves. Metellus remained 
some time in Boeotia, where he punished the Thebans for 
having taken part in the war, by destroying their city. He 
then advanced towards Megara, and once more tried what 
peaceful means would do. But the infatuated Diaeus rejected 
all proposals. During this interval the command of Metellus 
passed into the hands of L. Mummius, a rude soldier who 
had no sympathy with the Greeks. He at once, in b.c. 146, 
occupied the Isthmus with an army of twenty-three thousand 
foot and three thousand five hundred horse; and in the 
battle of Leucopetra, in the neighbourhood of Corinth, the 


362 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


fate of Greece was decided for ever. When Diaeus, who had 
fought with the courage of despair, found that all was lost, 
he fled with a small hand to his native city of Megalo¬ 
polis, where he killed his wife, took poison, and then set fire 
to his house. Three days after the battle, Mummius entered 
the city of Corinth, which he ordered to be sacked and 
destroyed by fire; all the male inhabitants were massacred, 
and the rest of the population sold as slaves. The Roman 
commissioners declared the Achaean and all other confedera¬ 
cies in Greece to be dissolved, and the territory of Corinth 
became domain land of the Roman republic. The ravages 
and devastation caused by the Roman soldiers in Pelopon¬ 
nesus after the fall of Corinth were fearful, and many a 
town shared its fate. Greece, however, was not at once con¬ 
stituted a Roman province ; indeed this step does not seem 
to have been taken until the time of Sulla. Many of the 
severe measures which were adopted at first were afterwards 
relaxed, and a number of Greek cities enjoyed a kind of 
freedom even under the supremacy of Rome. The political 
life of Greece, however, w r as now extinguished, and whatever 
advantages it continued to enjoy, were owing to the reve¬ 
rence with which civilised nations viewed it, and to its pre¬ 
eminence in arts and literature, which to some extent continued 
to flourish in the country in which they had first reached their 
highest perfection 




363 


CHAPTER XIV. 

ASIA AND EGYPT UNDER THE SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER 

THE GREAT. 

1. After the battle of Ipsus, in b.c. 301, the whole of 
the vast empire of Alexander the Great was finally broken 
up into four great monarchies : Macedonia, of which we have 
already given the history • Syria under Seleucus and his 
successors; Egypt under the Ptolemies; and Thrace under 
Lysimachus; while in Asia Minor there were formed a few less 
important kingdoms or principalities, such as Pontus, Perga- 
mus, Bithynia, and Cappadocia. The Thracian kingdom of 
Lysimachus, as we have seen, was of very brief duration, 
while the kingdoms of Syria and Egypt continued their 
independent existence longest, until, with the rest of the 
ancient world, they were swallowed up by the all-absorbing 
power of Rome. 

2. The founder of the Syrian dynasty was Seleucus, 
surnamed Hicator; its era is commonly dated from the 
year b.c. 312, when Seleucus recovered Babylon. After 
long and successful wars, he succeeded in uniting under his 
sceptre all the countries from the Indus to the Hellespont. 
The ancient country of Syria, however, was the seat of the 
government; he there built the magnificent capital of Anti¬ 
och on the river Orontes, which was rivalled in splendour 
only by Seleucia on the Tigris. These and about forty 
other cities founded by Seleucus and his successors tended to 
spread and establish Greek civilisation in the East. We 
have already seen* that when attempting to make himself 
master of Macedonia, he was assassinated in b.c. 280, by 

* r. 345. 


364 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


Ptolemy Ceraunus, at Lysimachia. He was succeeded by bis 
son Antiochus Soter (b.c. 280-261), under whom we already 
meet with the usual horrors of an eastern court, which continued 
ever after to disgrace these Hellenistic rulers of Asia. The 
immense wealth accumulated in Syria from the wealthy pro¬ 
vinces of the East, also created oriental luxury and effeminacy, 
which again fostered an abject and servile spirit among the 
people, manifesting itself in the basest flatteries towards 
their degenerate rulers, who were addicted to all the vices 
of eastern despots. Acts of bloody cruelty, the dominion 
of women and favourites, general moral corruption, together 
with disastrous wars against Egypt and the nations of Asia 
Minor, form the main topics of the history of the Syrian 
empire. Antiochus Soter fell in a battle against the Celts of 
Asia Minor, and was succeeded by his son Antiochus Theos 
(the god), who reigned from b. c. 261 till 246, carried on a war 
against Egypt, and was murdered by his own wife. In his 
reign, about b.c. 250, Arsaces founded the Parthian empire, 
and Bactria also became an independent kingdom, whereby 
the Syrian monarchy was considerably reduced. Antiochus 
was succeeded by Seleucus II., surnamed Callinicus, from b. c. 
246 till 226, who began his reign by murdering his step¬ 
mother and her infant son. This involved him in a war with 
Ptolemy Euergetes of Egypt, who not only made himself 
master of all Syria, but carried his arms beyond the Tigris. 
Ptolemy however was obliged to return to his own kingdom, 
and this enabled Seleucus to recover the greater part of what 
he had lost. His brother Antiochus Hierax attempted to 
establish an independent kingdom for himself in Asia Minor ; 
this led to a war between the brothers, in which Antiochus 
was defeated. Seleucus then endeavoured to subdue Parthia 
;and Bactria, but was unsuccessful, and those kingdoms after¬ 
wards dated their independence from this time. Attalus of 
Pergamus, in the meantime, likewise extended his principality 


ANTIOCHUS THE GREAT. 


365 


at the expense of Syria. Seleucus died by an accidental fall 
from his horse, and was succeeded by Seleucus III. (Cerau- 
nus), from b.c. 226 to 223, who was an imbecile both in body 
and mind, and was murdered by two of his own officers. 

3. The Syrian throne was now occupied by a brother 
of Seleucus III., Antiochus III., surnamed the Great, who 
reigned from b. c. 223 till 187. He is the only one among 
the Seleucidae who was not quite unworthy of the throne he 
filled. As he was only fifteen years old at his accession, 
attempts were made in various parts of his empire to throw 
off the yoke and gain independence. His first undertakings 
were directed against the revolted satraps, who were sub¬ 
dued ; but an attempt to wrest Phoenicia and Palestine 
from Egypt was unsuccessful, and he had to give up those 
countries in consequence of his defeat at Gaza, in b. c. 
217. In Asia Minor he had to combat Achaeus, who had 
for a time maintained himself as an independent ruler, but 
was finally conquered by Antiochus, b.c. 214. His most 
important undertaking, however, was a seven years’ war, 
from b. c. 212 to 205, in which he endeavoured to recover the 
revolted provinces of eastern Asia. He met indeed with great 
success, but found it impossible to subjugate the Parthian and 
Bactrian kingdoms, and accordingly concluded a peace with 
them, in which their independence was finally recognised. 
On his return he renewed the war with Egypt, and this time 
he was more successful, for he conquered Coele-Syria and 
Palestine. In b. c. 196 he crossed over into Europe and 
made himself master of the Thracian Chersonesus. The 
Romans indeed demanded of him to restore this conquest to 
Macedonia; but Antiochus, being urged on by Hannibal, 
who in b. c. 195 arrived at his court, refused, and began to 
think of attacking the Romans themselves. The execution of 
this plan, however, was delayed until b. c. 192, when, on the 
invitation of the H£tolians he again crossed over into Europe. 


366 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


However great he may have been in his eastern campaigns, 
it is certain that during his invasion of Greece, from which he 
was driven by a defeat at Thermopylae in b. c. 191, and the 
whole of the remainder of his reign, we are not informed of 
any action that could raise him above the ordinary range of 
eastern despots. His fleet also suffered two defeats, and he 
himself was finally conquered by the two Scipios, in b. c. 190, 
in a battle near Magnesia, at the foot of mount Sipylus. This 
battle broke the power of the Syrian empire for ever, for the 
king had to give up all his dominions west of mount Taurus, 
to surrender his elephants and ships of war, and to pay the 
heavy sum of fifteen thousand talents. He was killed a few 
years later during his attempt to rob a wealthy temple of its 
treasures, and was succeeded by his son Seleucus IV., sur- 
named Philopator, who reigned from b. c. 187 to 175. 

4. The Syrian empire, thus reduced within narrow limits, 
continued to exist for more than a century under a long suc¬ 
cession of contemptible rulers, whose history is full of atro¬ 
cious crimes, and who continued from time to time to be 
involved in wars with Egypt about the possession of Phoenicia 
and Palestine, the eternal bone of contention between Egypt 
and Syria. After the time of Antiochus the Great the power 
and influence of Pome in the affairs of the kingdom increased 
from year to year, until in b.c. 65 Pompey made Syria a 
Poman province, and deposed its last king Antiochus XIII., 
surnamed Asiaticus. The kingdom, composed as it was of 
most heterogeneous elements, without any internal bond of 
union, could be kept together by the sword alone, and as the 
warlike character of the Syrian rulers began to disappear soon 
after the foundation of the empire, its fate could not possibly 
have been other than that which history reveals to us; the 
provinces which felt strong enough, asserted and maintained 
their independence as distinct states, and the remainder fell 
an easy prey to the Pomans. 


KINGDOMS IN ASIA MINOR. 


367 


5. Independently of the eastern kingdoms of Parthia and 
Bactria, which were formed out of provinces of the Syrian 
empire, some minor states sprang up in Asia Minor. The 
greater part of that vast peninsula had been united by Lysi- 
machus with his kingdom of Thrace; but during the wars 
in which he was involved during the later years of his 
life, a large portion of it fell into the hands of Seleucus, 
while in other parts independent principalities arose, such 
as—(1.) The state of the Galatians, formed by bands of 
Celtic tribes, which, after ravaging Macedonia and Greece, 
had migrated into Asia Minor, and established themselves 
there by,their victory over Seleucus near Ancyra, in b.'c. 
280. (2.) The kingdom of Pergamus; its first rulers, 

Attains and Eumenes, were wise and brave, and extended 
their dominion in all directions. The Pergamenian court 
was on a small scale what the Alexandrian was on a large 
scale. The kings watched over the material interests of 
their subjects, and patronised the arts and literature by a 
liberal application of the public money. The library of Per¬ 
gamus was, next to that of Alexandria, the most celebrated 
in the ancient world. The kingdom was allied with Rome 
at an early period, and its last two kings, Attalus III. and 
IV., stooped to the lowest flatteries towards the Romans, who 
obliged the last king to bequeath his kingdom to them. (3.) 
The kingdom of Bithynia was formed about the same time as 
that of Pergamus, and continued its existence until b. c. 74, 
when Nicomedes III. bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans. 
(4.) Armenia became an independent kingdom during the 
later years of Antiochus the Great. Pontus and Cappadocia 
had been formed at an earlier period, out of hereditary satra¬ 
pies of the Persian empire, and their dynasties were connected 
with the family of the kings of Persia. 

G. Egypt had been assigned as a province to Ptolemy, the 
son of Lagus, surnamed Soter, in b. c. 323. After the murder 


368 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


of Perdiccas, lie enlarged his dominions by the conquest of 
Coele-Syria and Phoenicia. In his defeat by Demetrius off 
Salamis in Cyprus, Ptolemy lost that important island; but 
notwithstanding this reverse, he following the example of 
Antigonus and Demetrius, assumed the title of king of Egypt, 
n. c. 306, and this kingdom ever afterwards remained heredi¬ 
tary in the dynasty of which he was the founder. After the 
battle of Ipsus, in which he seems not to have taken a pro¬ 
minent part, he devoted himself almost entirely to promoting 
the internal prosperity of his kingdom, and the cultivation of 
the arts and sciences, objects which were pursued with equal 
zeal by his two successors. He made Egypt a gre^t military 
and maritime state. His capital Alexandria became the 
great centre of commerce and Greek culture for the eastern 
and the western world. His most celebrated institution was 
the Museum, which was connected with the royal palace, and 
contained the well-known Alexandrian library, and resi¬ 
dences for scholars, philosophers, and poets. But he and his 
two successors, who thus nobly exerted themselves, were, 
after all, foreigners to the country; and the men whom they 
employed to carry out their designs were likewise foreigners— 
Greeks and Jews. The native Egyptians, though they must 
to some extent have become hellenized, continued to cherish 
their inflexible and stubborn hatred of foreigners and foreign 
institutions, and bore their yoke in sullen seclusion. The 
splendour of the court of the Ptolemies therefore was, and 
always remained, an exotic plant, which could not take root 
in the foreign soil; and consequently it cannot much surprise 
us to find that the later Ptolemies abandoned the high objects 
aimed at by the founders of their dynasty, and employed 
the treasures of their kingdom in satisfying their sensual 
pleasures and passions, until in the end the Alexandrian 
court became as notorious for its immoralities and its horrors, 
as it was distinguished for its wealth and splendour. 


TIIE PTOLEMIES. 


369 


7. In b. c. 285, Ptolemy Soter abdicated in favour of his 
youngest son Ptolemy Pliiladelphus, who reigned from b. c. 
285 to 247, to the exclusion of his two elder brothers, Ptolemy 
Ceraunus and Meleager. His father died in b. c. 283. The 
long reign of Philadelphia was marked by few events of 
importance, except the usual hostilities with Syria, and the 
conclusion of a treaty with the Romans. His chief care was 
directed to the internal administration of his kingdom, and to 
the patronage of literature and the arts. The institutions 
founded by his father attained, under his fostering care, the 
highest prosperity. Natural history, in particular, was studied 
at Alexandria with great ardour, and many important works 
on science were produced. In his reign the Egyptian priest 
Manetho wrote a history of Egypt in Greek; and it is said 
to have been by the king’s command that the sacred writings 
of the Jews were translated into Greek (the Septuagint). 
Under him the power of Egypt rose to its greatest height, 
for his dominions comprised, besides Egypt itself and portions 
of Ethiopia, Arabia, and Libya, the important provinces 
of Phoenicia, Coele-Syria, Cyprus, Lycia, Caria, and the 
Cyclades; and in most of these countries he established 
numerous colonies. Cyrene also became united with his 
kingdom through a marriage. In his private character, 
however, Pliiladelphus does not appear in a favourable light, 
and his court already exhibited many scenes which show 
that he and those who surrounded him were becoming demo¬ 
ralised and degraded orientals. 

8. He was succeeded by his eldest son Ptolemy Euergetes, 
from b. c. 247 to 222. This king was successful in his wars 
against Syria; and the Asiatic provinces of that empire, as 
far as Bactria and India, submitted to him. From this great 
expedition he w T as recalled by news of an insurrection in 
Egypt. At the same time, his lieet was actively and success¬ 
fully engaged in the eastern parts of the Mediterranean. His 

2 b 


370 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


eastern conquests, however, appear to have again fallen into 
the hands of Seleucus of Syria, and he retained only the 
maritime parts. Like his father, he maintained friendly 
relations with Rome, and largely added to the treasures of 
the Alexandrian library. He was succeeded by his son 
Ptolemy Philopator, from b. c. 222 to 205, whose reign was the 
commencement of the decline of the Egyptian empire. Its very 
beginning is stained with crimes of the darkest hue. The 
monarch gave himself up to indolence and luxury, leaving the 
whole administration in the hands of his ministers. The 
kingdom rapidly decayed, and Antiochus the Great of Syria, 
not slow to profit by this state of things, for a time made 
himself master of Phoenicia and Coele-Syria; but in the end 
he was defeated and obliged to conclude peace with Egypt. 
After this Ptolemy, without any restraint, indulged in every 
vice and debauchery, and his mistresses and favourites were 
allowed to manage the affairs of the state in whatever way they 
pleased. But he still continued to some extent to patronise 
letters, and supported the Romans with supplies of grain during 
their second war with Carthage. Philopator was succeeded 
by his son Ptolemy Epiphanes, from b. c. 205 to 181, who 
was only five years old at the time of his father’s death. The 
kings of Syria and Macedonia, availing themselves of this 
opportunity, wrested from Egypt Coele-Syria, the Cyclades, 
and its possessions in Thrace. The ministers of the young 
king solicited the intervention of Rome in behalf of their 
master. The Romans demanded of the conquerors to restore 
to Egypt its possessions, but the demand was evaded by 
private arrangements among the different courts, and in b. c. 
193 king Ptolemy married Cleopatra, a Syrian princess. 
So long as he was under the guidance of wise men things 
went on pretty fairly, but he soon became tired of such advisers, 
and having removed them by poison, followed the example set 
him by his father, until he himself too was cut off by poison. 


THE LATER GREEKS. 


371 


9. At his death he was succeeded by his infant son 
Ptolemy Philometor, who reigned till b. c. 146. His mother 
Cleopatra undertook the regency, and maintained order and 
tranquillity in the kingdom; hut after her death in b. c. 173, 
the administration was left to unworthy and unprincipled 
favourites. Henceforth the history of Egypt, whose kings 
were under the almost absolute control of Rome, consists 
of a succession of disgusting details, and it may safely be 
asserted that a more contemptible set of rulers never disgraced 
a throne than the later Ptolemies. Under their wretched 
rule the state continued its miserable existence until the year 
b. c. 30, when the dissolute Cleopatra made away with her¬ 
self, and Egypt became a Roman province. 

10. After the overthrow of the independence of Greece in 
the reign of Philip, the father of Alexander, a great change 
gradually took place in the minds of the Greeks. Their stern 
notions about the sovereignty of the people, and the position 
of the citizens, had to undergo considerable modifications. 
Until then a citizen had been not so much a free individual 
agent, as a member of a political community, in which the 
person was absorbed, while every stranger not belonging 
to the same community was regarded as a being beyond 
the protection of the law, or even as an enemy. But under 
the Macedonian and Roman supremacy, the individuality of 
every man became more important in proportion as his 
character of citizen lost in value and dignity. With this 
feeling the undivided interest in the welfare of the state and 
the all-powerful patriotism of former days likewise disappeared. 
The narrow democratic communities of single cities were 
broken up, and enlarged into confederacies; these and the 
great monarchies which were formed out of the empire of 
Alexander, and with which many of the scattered Greeks 
were incorporated, gradually accustomed them to live at 
peace with their neighbours, to regard themselves as mem- 


372 


HISTORY OF GREECE. 


bers of one large state, and to sacrifice the right of govern¬ 
ing themselves in petty and turbulent states to the idea 
of larger political bodies. Even the national feeling of the 
Greeks, and the strong contrasts between hellenism and bar¬ 
barism, were softened down by the amalgamation of the 
Greeks and Orientals in the monarchies of the successors of 
Alexander, whence the exclusive Greeks of former times now 
became to some extent cosmopolites. 

11. Their notions about religion had experienced a 
similar change. The undoubting and child-like faith of the 
early times, when the gods were conceived as beings that 
took an interest in the joys and sorrows of mortals, had long 
since vanished among the higher and educated classes, and 
was despised as superstitious. The philosophical inquiries, 
from the time of Socrates downwards, had shaken polytheism 
to its foundations. Governments attempted to interfere, 
declaring themselves the defenders and upholders of the 
ancient national religion, and some philosophers were even 
punished or banished on the ground of atheism. But it was 
of no avail; ancient polytheism could not maintain its ground, 
and was gradually making way for a purer and holier religion, 
which was intended to extend its blessings over all mankind, 
and teach them that they are all governed by one God, whose 
loving-kindness towards all knows no bounds. 


BOOK III. 


HISTORY OF ROME, CARTHAGE, AND THE 
NATIONS OF WESTERN EUROPE. 


CHAPTER I. 

ITALY AND ITS INHABITANTS. 

1. Italy is the middle one of the three peninsulas in which 
southern Europe terminates; it extends from the foot of the 
Alps to the straits of Sicily, which island itself seems at one 
time to have formed its southernmost part. The whole penin¬ 
sula is traversed by the chain of the Apennines, which, com¬ 
mencing at the western extremity of the Alps, run in a south¬ 
eastern direction, in such a manner as to constitute as it were 
the spine of Italy. These mountains, however, do not form a 
mere ridge rising between the two sides of the peninsula, but 
form broad plateaus connected by passes. The broad low 
lands in the north between the Alps and the Apennines, 
however, do not, either geographically or historically, belong 
to ancient Italy. The eastern part of the peninsula which 
sinks down towards the basin of the Adriatic has few and 
unimportant rivers, and few harbours; the western part, on 
the other hand, has many navigable rivers, and is a hilly 
country with many harbours and bays, which sinks down 
towards the west and south, to the point where the fertile 
plain of Campania begins. The Italian peninsula has, on the 
whole, the same temperate and genial climate as Greece; it 



374 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


is healthy in the hills, and, generally speaking, also in the 
plains; but the coasts of Italy are not so richly articulated 
as those of Greece; and the sea around it is not studded 
with those numerous islands, which made the Greeks a mari¬ 
time nation. Italy, on the other hand, has superior advan¬ 
tages in its rich broad valleys traversed by rivers, and in the 
fertile slopes of its hills, which are fitted both for agriculture 
and for pasture. The vast plain in the north between the 
Apennines and the Alps, which was not regarded as a part of 
Italy until a very late period, is watered by the river Po and 
its numerous tributaries. 

2. It has already been observed that, when at some remote 
period of which history furnishes no information, the nations 
of the Indo-Germanic family migrated into Europe, one branch 
of it descended from the north upon Italy, and continued its 
migration southward so long as nature set no insuperable 
barrier to their progress. The tribes therefore which occupied 
Italy were akin to those which settled in Greece. This 
assumption is fully borne out by the languages of the Greeks 
and Italians, the roots and inflections of which are so much 
alike, that their original identity cannot be mistaken. This 
original identity of the nations of Italy and Greece is perhaps 
most appropriately expressed by the name of Pelasgians, 
which is given to most of the primitive inhabitants of both 
Greece and Italy, and may be viewed as the appellation com¬ 
mon to all the tribes of the Indo-Germanic stock which 
ultimately fixed their abodes on the coasts of Asia Minor, the 
islands of the iEgean, Greece, and Italy. The time when the 
immigration into the Italian peninsula took place belongs to 
so remote a period, that not even a tradition about it has been 
preserved; and the Italian nations, like most other ancient 
peoples, regarded themselves as autochthons or earthborn. 

3. But although all the original inhabitants of Italy 
belonged to the same stock, yet in the course of time the 


THE NATIONS OF ITALY. 


375 


languages, the chief criterion of nationality, of the different 
tribes, underwent changes and modifications so great that to 
the untrained mind they assume the appearance of different 
languages, while in reality they are only different dialects 
of the same primitive tongue. So far as our knowledge at 
present goes, we are enabled to distinguish three original 
Italian languages, the Iapygian, the Etruscan, and the Italian 
proper, as we may call it, the last of which embraces the 
dialects of the Latins, Umbrians, Marsians, Yolscians, and 
Sabellians, The languages spoken by all these tribes are 
but dialects of one and the same branch of the In do-Germanic 
stock. That which presents the greatest peculiarities is the 
Iapygian in the extreme south-east of Italy; it exists in 
numerous inscriptions which have not yet been deciphered, 
though it is evident that the language is Indo-Germanic, 
w r hich also accounts for the facility with which the people in 
that part of Italy afterwards became hellenized. The Iapy¬ 
gian s were no doubt the most ancient inhabitants of Italy, 
and had been pushed into the south-eastern corner by other 
immigrants pressing upon them from the north. The central 
part of the peninsula was inhabited by those nations whose 
history determines that of the whole, and which may there¬ 
fore be termed the Italians. They are divided into two main 
branches, the Latins and Umbrians, to the latter of which 
belong the Marsians and all the Samnite or Sabellian tribes. 
The languages spoken by these tribes formed one distinct 
group of the Indo-Germanic family, and it was at a compa¬ 
ratively late period that it branched out into the different 
dialects, which we now know partly from inscriptions and 
partly from the literature of the Romans. 

4. The Etruscans, Tuscans, or Tyrrhenians form the 
strongest possible contrast to the Latin and Sabellian tribes 
as w r ell as to the Greeks, and all we know of their manners 
and customs leads us to infer that they were widely different 


376 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


from all tlie branches of that family which we have called 
Pelasgian. This is more particularly striking in their reli¬ 
gion, which was of a gloomy and fantastic character, delight¬ 
ing in mysteries, and wild and savage notions and rites. 
The same striking peculiarities are exhibited in the language 
of the Etruscans, the numerous remnants of which in inscrip¬ 
tions stand so isolated, that as yet no one has been able to 
decipher them, or to assign to the language, with any degree 
of certainty, the place wdiich it occupies in the classifi¬ 
cation of languages. It is equally impossible to determine 
from what quarter the Etruscans migrated into Italy, though 
it is highly probable that they came from the valleys of 
the Raetian Alps, the native name of the Etruscans being 
Rasena, which may possibly be connected with Raetia. That 
they immigrated from the north, not by sea, is rendered further 
probable by the fact that all their great towns were built in the 
interior of the country. There was, however, a tradition in 
antiquity, according to which the Etruscans were Lydians, 
who had migrated into Italy from Lydia. But even ancient 
critics saw the absurdity of this tradition, inasmuch as the 
religion, the laws, the manners, and the language of the 
Etruscans did not bear the slightest resemblance to those of 
the Lydians. It is possible that some band of Asiatic adven¬ 
turers landing in Italy may have given rise to the story, but 
it is more probable that the whole is based upon some mis¬ 
take or some etymological speculation, for there existed in 
Lydia a town called Tyrrha and a tribe called Torrebi. But 
before the Etruscans immigrated into the country which to 
this day bears their name, it was probably inhabited by a 
race more closely akin to the Latins and Sabellians, that is, 
a people belonging to what we have called the Pelasgian race. 

5. It is historically certain, that previously to the 
great Celtic immigration into Italy, the Etruscans oc¬ 
cupied the country north of the river Po, and extended 


THE NATIONS OF ITALY. 


377 


eastward as far as the Adige. The country south of the 
Po was occupied by Umbrians. When the Celtic hordes 
poured down from the Alps upon the fertile plains of Lom¬ 
bardy, the Etruscans being pushed forward pressed upon the 
Umbrians, and finally settled in Etruria on the south-west 
of the Apennines. There they completely subdued the pre¬ 
viously established race or races, and maintained their own 
nationality, in spite of the influence of their southern neigh¬ 
bours, down to the time of the Roman emperors. In the 
south the river Tiber separated the Etruscans from Rome, 
though they are said at different times to have advanced 
beyond that river, and even into Campania. Bodies of Etrus¬ 
cans also are said to have received settlements at Rome, and 
it can hardly be doubted that the dynasty of the Tarquins, 
to which the last kings of Rome belonged, was of Etruscan 
origin; though it is singular, that during the regal period 
Etruria exercised no important influence upon either the lan¬ 
guage or the customs of the Romans. The Etruscans from 
very early times applied themselves to navigation, commerce, 
and industry, in consequence of which their cities rose to a 
high degree of prosperity and independence; and this was 
probably the reason why they were less warlike than the 
Romans and Sabellians, and began at an early period to avail 
themselves of the services of mercenaries. The earliest con¬ 
stitution of the Etruscan cities seems to have been, on the 
whole, like that of Rome. Twelve cities, each governed by a 
lucumo or king, formed a confederacy, which, however, appears 
to have been very loose; and in each city the nobles and 
the commonalty were as fiercely opposed to each other as at 
Rome. 

6. The last immigration into Italy from the north is that 
of the Celts or Gauls, who, expelling the Etruscans and Um¬ 
brians, took possession of the extensive country between the 
Alps and Apennines, and advanced southward as far as Pice- 


378 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


num. The country thus occupied by them bore the name of 
Gallia Cisalpina, to distinguish it from Gaul beyond the 
Alps. The time when the Gauls made their first appearance 
in Italy is not quite certain, though it was probably about the 
period of the Tarquins. They did not, however, rest satisfied 
with the country on the north and east of the Apennines, but 
made frequent attempts upon Etruria and Eome itself, which 
was once conquered and destroyed by them; but they never 
succeeded in permanently establishing themselves on the south 
or west of the Apennines. 

7. The coasts of southern Italy were occupied at an early 
period by Greek colonies, whence that country is generally 
designated by the name of Magna Graecia or Great Greece. 
In the Homeric poems Italy seems to be unknown to the 
Greeks ; but at the time when the Theogony of Hesiod was 
composed, they appear to have been well acquainted with 
the coasts of Italy, and it was probably not long after that 
the Greeks commenced to establish their colonies there. The 
most ancient of these settlements wms Cumae in Campania, 
founded by Asiatic merchants as a commercial factory. It is 
said to have been three hundred years older than Sybaris, 
which was founded in b. o. 723. But the earliest Greek 
colony in Italy of which the date is known, is Rhegium, which 
was founded in b. c. 746 ; this is the most ancient fact in the 
history of Italy that is chronologically certain. But the founda¬ 
tion of these colonies was followed in rapid succession by that 
of many others; and during the same period the coasts of 
Sicily also were occupied by Greek settlements. The influ¬ 
ence exercised by these colonies upon the civilisation of Italy 
was immense, and the whole of the south of Italy in particular 
became completely hellenized, in consequence of the facility 
with which the Greek language and Greek customs were 
adopted by the natives. 


CHAPTER II. 


THE BEGINNINGS OF ROMAN HISTORY, DOWN TO THE 
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REPUBLIC. 

1. The Latin branch of the Italian nations probably occu¬ 
pied at one time the western coast of Italy, from the Tiber to 
the straits of Sicily, and even a portion of Sicily itself. They 
appear in history under different names, such as Siculi, Latini, 
Ausones, and Opici. In the southern parts, as well as in 
Sicily, their nationality was overpowered by the Greek colonies, 
in consequence of which they were completely hellenized; in 
Campania they were early conquered and subdued by a branch 
of the Sabellian nation, which established itself in the country, 
and in conjunction with the Greek colonists modified the 
national character of the original inhabitants. Hence the 
Siculi, Ausones, and other southern branches of the Latin race, 
cannot be expected to act any prominent part in the history 
of Italy. But in Latium the case was different; there no 
Greek colonies were founded, and the Latins, after hard 
struggles with their northern and eastern neighbours, the 
Etruscans, and Sabines (the Sabellians), succeeded in main¬ 
taining their independence. Thirty of the towns of Latium 
formed a political confederacy, of which Alba Longa was the 
head. The confederates, called jpopuli Albenses , annually 
celebrated a common festival in honour of Jupiter Latiaris. 
Another similar confederacy was that which held its meetings 
in the grove of Diana at Aricia. In later times the Latins, 
who had formed these ancient confederacies, called themselves 
Prisci Latini , the ancient Latins, to distinguish themselves 
from the Latin colonies established out of Latium, in different 
parts of Italy. Rome itself was in all probability originally 


380 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


no more than one of the thirty Latin towns belonging to Alba, 
for which reason it is sometimes called a colony of Alba. 

2. The most ancient part of the city of Rome was situated 
on the Palatine, one of the many hills which rise on both 
banks of the Tiber, at a distance of about twenty English 
miles from its mouth. The time of its foundation is unknown, 
though it was in antiquity, and still is generally assumed, for 
the sake of convenience, that it was built in the year b.c. 753. 
But there can be no doubt that Rome as a Latin town had 
existed long before that time. According to a story which 
arose in Italy at an early period, and probably owed its origin 
to the mere fact that the Romans ethnologically belonged to 
the same race as the Trojans, the founders of Rome were 
descended from the Trojan iEneas, who, after the destruction 
of Troy, had landed with a few followers on the coast of Latium. 
Numitor, king of Alba Longa, and a descendant of iEneas, 
says the story, was deprived by his brother Amulius of his 
throne, and his daughter Rhea Silvia was made a priestess 
of Vesta, to remove all apprehensions for the future, since, as 
a vestal, she was not allowed to marry. But the uncle’s 
design was thwarted, for Rhea Silvia became by Mars the 
mother of twins, Romulus and Remus. Amulius endeavoured 
to get rid of the infants by exposing them in a basket 
on the banks of the Tiber, which happened to have over¬ 
flowed the country; but the basket was thrown on dry land, 
and the babes were suckled by a she-wolf, and afterwards 
brought up by a shepherd. When they had grown up to 
manhood, they became through an accident acquainted with 
their history, and the injustice done to their grandfather. With 
the aid of their comrades they restored Numitor to the throne 
of Alba Longa, and built the town of Rome on the Palatine 
hill, on the left bank of the river Tiber. In a dispute about 
the name to be given to the new town Romulus slew his 
brother Remus. This legend is evidently a pure fiction, and 


ROMULUS. 


381 


Romulus himself a mere invention to account for the name of 
Rome, like those we meet with, in innumerable instances, both 
in Greece and in Italy. 

3. The history of Rome, from its foundation to the esta¬ 
blishment of the republic, and in many respects down to its 
destruction by the Gauls, is so much mixed up with poetical 
and other legends, that it is impossible to say what is historical 
and what not. The few facts which can be gleaned are 
derived partly from ancient monuments, and partly from the 
institutions of later times, which occasionally allow us to catch 
a glimpse of what must have been the original state of things. 
We are told that Rome was governed by seven kings before 
the abolition of royalty; each king has a fixed number of 
years assigned to his reign, and certain political, social, and 
religious institutions are ascribed to him; but historical criti¬ 
cism has shewn that not the slightest reliance can be placed 
upon these details, for almost everything is arranged symme¬ 
trically, whence it is evident that the early history was in 
later times made up artificially from slender and vague tra¬ 
ditions. For, during the Gallic conflagration, about b. c. 
390, nearly all the historical monuments perished. This 
being the case, it would hardly be necessary here to repeat 
the stories of the several kings, some of whom are purely 
mythical, were it not that these stories are so often alluded to 
by writers of all ages and countries. For this reason we shall 
give a brief outline of them all, accompanying each with a few 
critical observations to show how much of truth may be con¬ 
tained in it. 

4. When the little town on the Palatine hill was built, and 
surrounded by a ditch and a rampart, Romulus, as the story 
runs, opened an asylum for people of every description, in order 
to increase the number of inhabitants. Everybody found a 
welcome reception ; but as few or no women were to be found 
in the new town, the population would have died out after a 


382 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


short time. Romulus made applications to the neighbouring 
communities to obtain wives for his subjects, but his pro¬ 
posals being treated with contempt, he resolved to obtain by 
stratagem what was refused to his honourable request. He 
invited the neighbouring Sabines and Latins to come to Rome 
to witness certain festive games; and when they were assembled 
his Romans fell upon the daughters of their guests, and carried 
them off by force. In consequence of this, Rome became 
involved in a war with the Sabines, which, however, was 
brought to an amicable conclusion by the intervention of the 
women, who threw themselves between the two armies, and 
declared themselves willing to share the fate of their new 
husbands. Peace was then concluded, in which it was agreed 
that the Romans and Sabines should be united in one state, 
on condition, however, that each nation should have a king of 
its own. The Sabines, under their king Titus Tatius, then 
built a new town for themselves on the Capitoline and Quiri- 
nal hills, T. Tatius dwelling on the Capitoline, and Romulus 
on the Palatine. This happy union, however, did not last 
long, for after some years T. Tatius was slain at Laurentum, 
and Romulus thenceforth ruled as sole king of Rome, over 
both the Romans and Sabines. 

5. After this Romulus is said to have waged successful 
wars against Fidenae and the Etruscan town of Yeii, the latter 
of which he compelled to give up a portion of its territory. His 
reign extended over a period of thirty-eight years, from b. c. 
753 to 716, and his death was as marvellous as his birth, for 
while he was reviewing his people, his father Mars descended in 
a tempest, and bore him up to heaven. It was afterwards 
believed that he himself had become a god like his divine 
father, and that, under the name of Quirinus, he watched over 
the interests of the state he had founded. The Romans of 
later times naturally entertained the opinion that Romulus, 
the founder of their state, was the author of the ground-work 


NUMA POMPILIUS. 


383 


of their political constitution. Hence he is said to have 
divided the whole people into three tribes, the Ramnes, Tities, 
and Luceres, each tribe into ten curiae, and each curia into 
a number of gentes. The original senate of one hundred 
members is said to have been increased to two hundred at the 
time when the Sabines united with the Romans in one state. 
The Ramnes in this division are the original Romans (Ramnes 
being in fact identical with Romani), the Tities are the Sabines, 
so called from their king T. Tatius. But who the Luceres 
were is uncertain, nor do we know the exact time when they 
became incorporated with the other two tribes. Besides the 
people contained in the three tribes and their sub-divisions, 
who constituted the sovereign people, we hear in the very 
earliest times of clients and slaves. The clients may he 
regarded as retainers of certain families or gentes, and the 
person to whom a client was attached was called his patron 
(from pater , a father)—a name which seems to indicate that 
the relation subsisting between a patron and his client resem¬ 
bled that between a father and his son. The plebeians, or 
the commons of Rome, did not exist in the earliest times, 
unless we regard the clients as plebeians. 

6. After the ascension of Romulus, a whole year is said 
to have passed away without a successor being elected, until 
at length the Romans chose, from among the Sabines, the wise 
and pious Numa Pompilius, who did for religion and the wor¬ 
ship of the gods what Romulus had done for the political orga¬ 
nisation of the state. His long reign of forty-three years, from 
b. c. 715 to 672, is described as a period of uninterrupted 
peace, during which the king was chiefly occupied in esta¬ 
blishing the priesthood and the ceremonies connected with the 
worship of the gods. He first regulated the calendar by the 
institution of a lunar year of twelve months or three hundred and 
fifty-five days, of which some were set apart for religious pur¬ 
poses ; and then instituted the various orders or colleges of priests, 


384 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


as the flamines, or priests of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus ; the 
vestal virgins, the salii of Mars, the pontiffs, who possessed the 
most extensive powers in all matters connected with religion; 
and lastly, the college of augurs, whose business it was to 
ascertain the will of the gods by observing the flight of birds 
in the air and their manner of feeding. Numerous temples 
and altars also were built to the gods, and in all these 
matters Numa is said to have been guided by the counsels 
of a divine being, the nymph Egeria, who favoured him with 
her presence in a sacred grove. Amid these pious operations 
his reign glided away in profound peace, and the temple 
of Janus, which was built by Numa Pompilius, remained 
closed throughout the king’s reign—a sign that Rome was not 
at war with any nation. There can be no doubt that many 
of the institutions ascribed in the legend to Numa, had existed 
from time immemorial among the Latins and Sabines; his 
history seems, in fact, to be scarcely less mythical than that of 
his predecessor. The religion of the Romans, which is almost 
described as a device of Numa, was in all essential points the 
same as that of the Greeks—a worship of nature and her 
various powers personified, but with this difference, that the 
Greeks, being a more poetical nation, clothed their concep¬ 
tions and ideas in the form of numberless stories, of which the 
Roman religion, in its ancient and pure state, is perfectly free. 

7. After the death of Numa Pompilius, the Romans chose 
Tullus Hostilius for their king from among the Ramnes. His 
reign, extending from b. c. 672 to 640, was totally opposed in 
character to that of his predecessor, for he is said to have 
neglected the worship of the gods, and to have carried on serious 
wars with his neighbours. The first war was that with Alba 
Longa, the alleged mother-city of Rome. The two little 
states had indulged in mutual acts of violence, and as repara¬ 
tion was refused, arms were resorted to. The contest was 
for a long time doubtful, till at length the commanders cn 


TULLUS HOST/LIUS. 


385 


both sides agreed that the dispute should be decided by a 
combat of three brothers who were serving in the Roman 
army, and bore the name of Horatii, with three brothers, 
called Curiatii, in the army of the Albans; and it was further 
agreed, that the victorious party should rule over the van¬ 
quished. The three champions now came forward on both 
sides; and two of the Horatii were soon slain, but the remain¬ 
ing one was unhurt, while the three Curiatii were wounded. 
Iloratius then took to flight, and the three Albans pursued 
him at intervals from one another. Horatius, who had fore¬ 
seen this, turned round and slew them one after another. 
When the Romans were returning home in triumph, Horatius 
met his sister, who burst into tears when she saw her brother 
carrying among the spoils a garment she had woven with her 
own hands for one of the Curiatii, to whom she had been 
betrothed. Horatius, enraged at her conduct on such an 
occasion, ran her through with his sword. For this outrage 
he was tried and sentenced to death; but he obtained his 
acquittal by an appeal to the people, who were moved by the 
thought of what he had gained for his country, and by the 
entreaties of his father. This beautiful story, so much cherished 
by the Romans of all ages, is unquestionably no more than a 
popular tradition or poetical fiction, though the fact of Alba 
being overpowered by the Romans need not on this account 
be doubted. 

8. Alba was bound by the terms agreed upon to recog¬ 
nise the supremacy of Rome, but the yoke was borne with 
reluctance. During a war between Rome and Fidenae, in 
which the Albans ought to have assisted the Romans, they 
formed a treacherous design. When this was discovered by 
Tullus Hostilius, he, after the enemy was defeated, ordered 
the commander of the Albans to be put to death, and their 
city to be razed to the ground. His orders were immediately 
carried into execution. The people of Alba are said to have 

2 c 


386 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


been transferred to Rome, where the Caelian hill was assigned 
to them as their habitation ; some of the noble Alban families 
obtained the full Roman franchise, while the great body of 
the people entered into a relation which was neither that of 
full citizens nor of clients, but was designated by the name of 
plels as opposed to the patres , patricii or populus Romanus , 
by which names the old citizens were henceforth designated. 
The strength of Rome was thus doubled by the fall of Alba, 
which may be regarded as an historical fact, though it is not 
likely to have taken place under the circumstances related in 
the legend. After the destruction of Alba, the Roman king 
waged war against the Sabines and Latins, over the latter 
of whom he claimed the same authority as that formerly 
exercised by Alba. Towards the end of his reign, the dis¬ 
pleasure of the gods at the neglect of their worship mani¬ 
fested itself in various ways, and in the end Tullus Hostilius 
and his whole house were destroyed by Jupiter with a flash 
of lightning. 

9. After his death the Romans elected Ancus Marcius, a 
Sabine, from among the Tities, to the throne (b. c. 640-616). 
He was a relation of Numa, in whose footsteps he followed, 
though he did not give himself up wholly to religious duties, for 
when occasion required, he displayed as much valour in the 
field as piety at home. The Latins, who had concluded a 
peace with his predecessor, now rose in arms to assert their 
independence of Rome; but in vain: many of their towns 
were taken, and the whole body of them was defeated in a 
pitched battle. Many thousands of them were transferred to 
Rome, where, being settled between the Aventine and Palatine, 
they entered into the same relation as that of the conquered 
people of Alba, that is, they became plebeians, whose number 
now probably far surpassed that of the old citizens or patricians. 
We must not, however, suppose that all or even the greater 
number of the Latins were transferred to Rome, for the 


ANCUS MARCIUS. 


387 


majority must no doubt be conceived to have remained in 
their towns and on their farms or estates. Ancus Marcius 
extended the dominion of Rome as far as the mouth of the 
Tiber, where he built Ostia, the port-town of Rome, and 
established salt-works. 

10. The reigns of Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius 
are most remarkable, because they form the period during 
which Rome obtained its commonalty, henceforth the most 
interesting part of its population, on account of its perse¬ 
vering struggles to remove the wrongs under which it 
suffered, and to obtain as much power as was necessary to 
protect itself against the oppressive tyranny of the patricians. 
These plebeians were personally free, but, being excluded from 
the political organisation of the patricians, they had no political 
rights, but only duties. The law, moreover, declared marriages 
between patricians and plebeians illegal. The plebeians 
formed, in fact, an irregular mass without any organisation 
among themselves, except that they were divided, like the other 
Italians, into gentes or clans. It is further remarkable that the 
legends represent the first four kings of Rome as alternately 
belonging to the Ramnes and Tities, that is, to the Latin and 
Sabine tribes—no king of the Luceres being mentioned. As to 
the remaining kings, Tarquinius Priscus and Tarquinius Super¬ 
bus, the legends point to Etruria as the country from which 
they came, though they are not described as Etruscans, but as 
descendants of a Corinthian Demaratus, who is said to have 
settled at Tarquinii in Etruria. Servius Tullius, the sixth 
king, w T ho in some traditions is described as an Etruscan, is 
said by others to have been a Latin, which latter supposition 
is more in accordance with the political reforms that are 
ascribed to him. It further deserves to be noticed that the 
Roman state, which, in the reign of Ancus Marcius, is described 
as comprising only a small portion of Latium, suddenly appears 
under his successor as a powerful monarchy, under which 


388 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


architectural works were constructed, challenging ir. grandeur 
and durability a comparison with the immortal structures of the 
Egyptians. 

11. The fifth king of Rome, Tarquinius Priscus, who is 
said to have reigned from b. c. 616 till 578, is represented in 
all the traditions as a foreigner, who by his wealth and wis¬ 
dom gained the favour of Ancus Marcius, and after his death 
was elected king of Rome. After a successful war against 
the Sabines he began the building of the great Capitoline 
temple, which was dedicated to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, 
and was not completed until the reign of the seventh king. 
After peace had been concluded with the Sabines, he carried 
on a war with the Latins, whose towns he conquered one after 
another, so that the whole country became subject to him. 
From some traditions it would seem that in the reign of Tar- 
quinius Priscus the sovereignty of Rome was acknowledged by 
all the Latins, the Sabines, and the Etruscans. But what 
makes his reign still more illustrious than these conquests, 
is the great and useful architectural works which he is said 
to have executed, such as the great sewer (cloaca maxima ), 
by means of which the Forum and other low grounds were 
drained and secured against inundations of the river ; and the 
great race-course for horses and chariots (circus maximus ). 
The religion of the Romans, which had before been of a 
simple and rustic character, is said through his influence to 
have become more pompous and showy; the gods were then 
first represented in human forms. He is also said to have 
increased the number of senators from two hundred to three 
hundred, which seems to suggest that the third tribe, the 
Luceres, were then incorporated with the Roman state. Tar- 
quinius Priscus is reported to have intended to give to the 
plebeians some kind of organisation, and to surround his ex¬ 
tended city with a stone w r all; but he was prevented from 
executing these plans, which were reserved for his successor. 


TARQUINIUS PRISCUS—SERVIUS TULLIUS. 


389 


Tarquinius was murdered by the sons of his predecessor, who 
looked upon him as a usurper that had interfered with their 
legal claims to the succession. 

12. Tarquinius Priscus was succeeded by Servius Tullius, 
who reigned from b. c. 578 to 534. He is described as a 
foreigner who was married to a daughter of Tarquinius, but 
his origin is uncertain. His reign is celebrated in history for 
three great measures; first, for the organisation he gave to 
the plebeians ; secondly, for his political reforms; and thirdly, 
for the fact that he surrounded the city with a stone wall in 
those parts where it needed such protection. He divided the 
whole body of the plebeians into thirty local divisions, four of 
which belonged to the city, and the remaining twenty-six to the 
country around it. Each of these divisions, called tribus , was 
headed by its own magistrate, and all the thirty tribes might 
meet for discussion in assemblies called comitia tributa , as dis¬ 
tinguished from the meetings of the patricians, the comitia 
curiata. His political reform consisted in his making pro¬ 
perty instead of birth the standard by which the rights and 
duties of the citizens were to be determined. For this pur¬ 
pose he instituted a census, and divided all the people into five 
property classes, and these again into one hundred and ninety- 
three centuries or votes, which, however, were distributed in 
such a manner that all political power was virtually vested 
in the wealthy classes, so that for the moment the change 
was probably not a very violent one. A sixth class, consisting 
of the proletarians, or capite censi , had no political rights, but 
were at the same time exempt from military service. The 
assembly of the one hundred and ninety-three centuries 
(comitia centuriata ) embracing both patricians and plebeians, 
henceforth truly represented the whole body of the Roman 
people, <and to it were transferred all the more important 
functions which until then had belonged to the assemblies of 
the patricians in their curiae. This reform, which was 


390 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


intended to place the plebeians on a footing of equality with 
the patricians, and to establish the king's power on the broad 
basis of the whole people, drew upon Servius Tullius the 
hatred of the patricians, who, headed by Tarquinius, his own 
son-in-law, created a revolution, in which the aged Servius 
was murdered, and Tarquinius ascended the throne. 

13. Tradition represents this revolution in the following 
tragic story. In order to propitiate the sons of his predeces¬ 
sor, Servius had given his two daughters in marriage to the two 
sons of Tarquinius, Lucius and Aruns. The former, a man 
capable of criminal actions, though not naturally disposed to 
crime, was married to a mild and virtuous woman, while the 
wife of his gentle brother Aruns was the very essence of wicked¬ 
ness. Enraged at the long life of her father, and at the indif¬ 
ference of her husband, who seemed to be willing to leave the 
succession to his more ambitious brother, she planned destruc¬ 
tion for both. An agreement was entered into between her and 
Lucius, that he should kill his wife, and she her husband, and 
that then she and Lucius should be united in marriage. 
When these crimes were accomplished, Lucius, stimulated by 
his fiendish wife, entered into a conspiracy with discontented 
patricians, with the view of destroying the aged king Servius. 
About the harvest season, when many of the people were 
engaged in the fields, Lucius Tarquinius appeared in the 
senate with the ensigns of royalty, and a band of armed fol¬ 
lowers. The king, when informed of these proceedings, 
hastened to the curia, and called Tarquinius a usurper. The 
latter, then seizing the king, threw him down the stone 
steps. He was picked up, bleeding and bruised, by his faith¬ 
ful adherents, who endeavoured to carry him home; but 
before reaching the palace, they were overtaken by the emis¬ 
saries of L. Tarquinius. The king was murdered, and his 
body left lying in the street. Meantime Tullia, the wife of 
Tarquinius, impatient to receive the news of her husband's 


TARQUINIUS SUPERBUS. 


391 


success, hastened to the senate, and saluted him as king. 
This unnatural conduct was too much even for L. Tarquinius, 
who hade her return home. When on her way back, the 
chariot drove through the street in which her father’s body 
was lying; the mules on approaching it reared, and the driver 
stopped; but Tullia ordered him to go on, and the chariot 
passed over the king’s body, the blood of which stained the 
garments of the unnatural daughter. The street in which 
this happened bore ever after the name of vicus sceleratus , or 
the accursed street. 

14. L. Tarquinius, surnamed Superbus, now ascended the 
throne, on which he maintained himself from b. c. 534 to 510. 
The constitutional reforms of Servius Tullius were abolished 
at once, and the labours of that king seemed to have been 
spent in vain. The acts of oppression ascribed to Tarquinius 
are almost incredible; but it cannot be denied that he was a 
man of great military skill, for he enlarged his kingdom more 
than any of his predecessors, and embellished the city with 
great and useful architectural structures. The Latin towns 
were compelled to conclude a treaty with him, in which Rome 
was recognised as the head of them all; he conquered Suessa 
Pometia, the wealthy town of the Volscians, and strengthened 
and extended the dominion of Rome by the establishment of 
colonies, such as Signia and Circeii, thus laying the founda¬ 
tion of Rome’s dominion, for it was through such colonies, both 
Roman and Latin, that the power of Rome was established, and 
her language and civilisation were diffused over all parts of 
the peninsula. But in spite of his military achievements, 
even the patricians began to show symptoms of discontent, 
for it was but too evident that he was aiming at doing away 
with the senate, and establish himself as an absolute ruler. 
His acts of oppression towards the senate and the patricians, 
the heavy taxes and task-work demanded of the plebeians, 
called forth feelings among his subjects which could not be 


392 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


mistaken. The king, it is said, was harassed by dreams and 
threatening prodigies; in this distress he sent two of his sons, 
Titns and Arnns, to consult the oracle of Delphi. To amuse 
them on their journey, he sent along with them a cousin, L. 
Junius Brutus, who had assumed the character of an idiot to 
escape being put to death by the king. When the princes 
had executed their orders at Delphi, their curiosity prompted 
them to consult the god about themselves also, and the 
answer given was that the throne of Rome should belong to 
him who, on returning home, should be the first to kiss his 
mother. Upon this it was agreed that the brothers should 
kiss their mother simultaneously, and that thus they should 
reign in common. But on their landing in Italy, Brutus, as 
if falling by accident, without being observed, kissed the earth, 
the mother of all. 

15. Some time after this the Romans were besieging 
Ardea, the fortified town of the Rutulians. As the siege was 
protracted, it one day happened that while the king’s sons 
and their cousin Tarquinius Collatinus were discussing in 
their tent the virtues of their wives, it was agreed that the 
three should return home by night to surprise them, and 
see how they were spending their time. At Rome the 
princesses were found revelling at a luxurious banquet, but 
on coming to Collatia, they found Lucretia, the wife of Tar¬ 
quinius Collatinus, engaged with her maids in spinning. In 
this occupation she appeared so beautiful and lovely, that one 
of the princes, Sextus Tarquinius, a few days later, returned to 
Collatia, where as a kinsman he was hospitably received. 
But in the dead of night he entered her chamber, and 
threatened to kill her, to lay a dead slave by her side, and to 
declare that he had detected her in adulterous intercourse with 
him, if she would not consent to gratify his lust. By the 
combination of these terrors he gained his end. But on the 
following morning she sent for her father and her husband. 


ABOLITION OF ROYALTY. 


393 


Both came, accompanied by P. Valerius and L. Junius 
Brutus. The disconsolate Lucretia related to them what had 
happened, and having called on them to avenge the wrong, 
plunged a dagger into her breast. The moment had now 
come for Brutus to throw off the mask: he drew the dagger 
from her breast and vowed destruction to the royal house 
of the Tarquins. In this vow he was cordially joined by 
his friends who stood round the body of Lucretia, which was 
then carried into the market-place of Collatia. The people 
there at once took up arms, and promised to obey the com¬ 
mands of the liberators. Brutus then proceeded to Rome, 
where the sad tale produced the same effect as at Collatia. 
Brutus, who held the office of tribunus celerum (commander 
of the cavalry), summoned a meeting of the people in 
the Forum, and it was unanimously decreed that king Tar- 
quin should be deposed and banished, with all his family. 
Lucretia’s father remained behind as commander of the gar¬ 
rison at Rome, while Brutus set out for Ardea to attack 
the king. When he arrived in the camp, the soldiers con¬ 
firmed the decree of the people, and the king, who had gone 
to Rome by a different road, finding the gates closed against 
him, took refuge at Caere in Etruria. 

16. Such is the legendary story of a revolution which for 
ever put an end to the kingly government at Rome. How 
much there is of real history in it cannot be ascertained, 
though it scarcely admits of a doubt that Tarquinius Super¬ 
bus was the last king of Rome, and that his rule had been 
very tyrannical, whatever allowances we may make for exag¬ 
geration. But whether the revolution was accomplished in 
the quiet and rapid w T ay in which the legend describes it, is 
more than doubtful. During the period which is closed by it, 
Rome was an elective monarchy, and it is only under the later 
kings that we hear of sons claiming the right to succeed their 
fathers on the throne. The king, elected by and from among the 


394 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


patricians, was the supreme magistrate, and as such commander 
of the armies, supreme judge, and the high priest of the nation. 
His power was not absolute, for he had to consult the senate, 
or council of elders, which existed at Rome as in most ancient 
states. Its members were indeed chosen by the king him¬ 
self, hut their number, three hundred, seems to suggest that 
the senators were the representatives of the three tribes and 
the thirty curiae; at all events the king was obliged, by custom, 
to listen to the advice of the senate, at whose meetings either 
he himself or his representative (the praefectus urbi ) presided. 
Independently of the senate, the king’s power was limited by 
the assembly of the people, that is, the old citizens or patri¬ 
cians in their comitia curiata , until, by the reforms of Servius 
Tullius, the great national assembly, the comitia centuriata , 
stepped into the place of the former. All matters which had to 
be brought before the assembly of the people, such as those 
connected with peace and war, the election of magistrates 
and proposals of new laws, were first discussed and prepared 
in the senate, and if sanctioned by that body, were then laid 
before the people, who might either adopt or reject them. 

17. As to the state of civilisation among the Romans 
during the regal period, we have every reason to believe that 
they were not very far behind our own ancestors during the mid¬ 
dle ages; for they had a regularly organised form of government, 
lived in towns surrounded by fortifications, had regular armies, 
and above all, loved and cherished agriculture, and constructed 
architectural works, which still attract the admiration of travel¬ 
lers. The legends contain many traits revealing to us the ways 
of living among the early Romans. The art of writing, which 
was, no doubt, introduced among the Romans by the Greeks set¬ 
tled in southern Italy, was known during the regal period, but 
was not employed for literary purposes. King Servius Tullius 
is said to have coined the first brass, and to have marked it with 
the figure of some animal, whence the name pecunia for money. 


395 


CHAPTER III. 

FROM TIIE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REPUBLIC UNTIL THE 
DECEMVIRAL LEGISLATION. 

1. After the expulsion of the Tarquins, b. c. 509, the people 
assembled in the comitia abolished the kingly dignity for ever, 
restored the laws of Servius Tullius, and elected two magis¬ 
trates from among the patricians, L. Junius Brutus and 
Tarquinius Collatinus, who, under the title of praetors (after¬ 
wards consuls) were to conduct the government for one 
year. These magistrates had the same power and the same 
insignia as the kings, except that the priestly functions of 
the king were transferred to a new dignitary, called rex 
sacrorum. The power of the patricians was virtually increased, 
inasmuch as two of their order might every year be raised 
to the highest magistracy. The senate and the comitia cen- 
turiata retained the powers assigned to them by Servius Tullius. 
The plebeians, being completely under the dominion of the 
patricians, were probably in a worse condition than they had 
been under the monarchy, as the king would naturally favour 
the great body of the plebs, to have in them a counter¬ 
poise to the arrogant and ambitious nobles. The plebeians 
were excluded from all the public offices and from the right 
of contracting legal marriages with patricians. In the great 
national assembly the patricians carried every measure by 
the overwhelming numbers of their votes, so that the plebeians 
exercised scarcely any influence upon the elections and the 
passing of laws. The administration of justice, moreover, 
was completely in the hands of the patricians. Under such 
circumstances a conflict between the two orders could not be 
far distant. 


396 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


2. The young republic had from the first to maintain very 
serious struggles against both domestic and foreign enemies. 
Even under the very first consuls a number of young patricians 
formed a conspiracy, the object of which was to restore the 
exiled king. When it was discovered, Brutus, with a stern¬ 
ness peculiarly characteristic of a Roman, ordered the guilty 
parties, and among them his own two sons, to be put to death. 
But the greatest danger came from Etruria, where Tarquinius, 
the exiled king, had solicited and obtained the aid of Porsenna, 
bars or lord of Clusium. The Etruscan chief marched against 
Rome and established himself on the hill Janiculum, on the 
right bank of the Tiber. The war with this powerful enemy 
was afterwards greatly embellished by tradition and popular 
lays, in which the glory and valour of the republican Romans 
appear in most brilliant colours. Once, it is said, the Romans 
crossed the Tiber for the purpose of driving the invader from 
his stronghold, but were repulsed and obliged to return to the 
city. The enemy would have followed them across the river, 
had not Horatius Codes, a valiant and powerful Roman, who 
was intrusted with the guarding of the wooden bridge (pons 
siiblicius ), with two comrades kept the whole hostile army at 
bay, while the Romans were engaged in breaking down the 
bridge. Soon he even dismissed his two companions and alone 
resisted the attacks of the foe, until the crashing of the timber 
and the shouts of his fellow citizens announced to him that the 
work of demolition was completed. He then prayed to Father 
Tiber to receive him and his arms in his sacred stream, and 
leaping into the river safely swam across amid showers of 
darts sent after him by the Etruscans. His grateful country¬ 
men rewarded him with a statue in the comitium and with as 
much land as he could plough round in a day. A similar re¬ 
ward was given to Mucius Scaevola; for when during the 
protracted siege Rome was suffering from famine, tha* heroic 
youth, with the sanction of the senate, undertook to deliver 


WAR WITH THE LATINS. 


397 


the city by murdering the chief of the Etruscans. He secretly 
made his way into the enemy’s camp, and being acquainted 
with the Etruscan language contrived to reach the tent of 
Porsenna. But by a mistake he killed the king’s scribe instead 
of the king himself. He was seized, and as the king was 
endeavouring by threats to extort his confession, Mucius thrust 
his right hand into the fire which was burning on an altar 
close by, to show that he dreaded neither death nor torture. 
From this circumstance he derived the surname of Scaevola, 
that is, left handed. 

3. But however fascinating the stories are in which the 
Bomans have clothed the first struggles of their republic for 
freedom and independence, we know on good authority 
that Porsenna made himself master of Rome, and obliged the 
Romans to purchase his departure by giving him hostages, 
and ceding to him one-third of their territory, that is, ten out 
of their thirty local tribes. It deserves to be noticed, that 
throughout this war, which is said to have been undertaken 
on behalf of the exiled Tarquinius, he himself is never once 
mentioned as taking part in it. After the war, Porsenna also 
disappears, and is no more heard of. About the same time, 
b. c. 505, the Romans had to carry on war against the Sabines, 
and some revolted towns of the Auruncans, against both of 
whom their arms were successful. A more formidable war, 
however, broke out in b. c. 501 with the Latins, whom Tar¬ 
quinius, through the influence of a kinsman, is said to have 
stirred up against Rome. Thirty Latin towns conspired 
against Rome, and, under these alarming circumstances, 
the Romans, thinking it safer to place the supreme power 
in the hands of one man, appointed, in b. c. 498, T. Larcius 
dictator, an office which existed in several Latin towns. This 
step kept the enemy in awe, and the plebeians at home in 
quiet submission. The war lasted for several years, until it was 
brought to a close in b. c. 496, by the famous battle of lake 


398 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


Regillus, on the road from Rome to Praeneste. The victory 
was gained by the Romans, in whose ranks the gods Castor and 
Pollux were seen fighting. The whole account of this battle, 
which forms the close of the mythical period in Roman history, 
is thoroughly fabulous ; the victory over the Latins cannot be 
true, as three years later, b. c. 493, they concluded a treaty 
with Rome, under Spurius Cassius, in which they were placed 
on a footing of equality with her, without any previous dispute 
or feud being mentioned. King Tarquinius is said to have 
been wounded in the battle, and to have withdrawn to the 
Greek tyrant of Cumae, where he soon after died in b. c. 495. 

4. As long as Tarquinius was alive, and Rome was threat¬ 
ened by foreign enemies, the patricians did their best to keep 
the plebeians in good humour, as they required their aid in 
the battles, for the main body of the Roman armies consisted 
of plebeians, and without them it would have been impos¬ 
sible for the republic to maintain itself. But no sooner had 
the dangers passed away, than the patricians, disregarding 
everything but their own interests and privileges, gave the 
rein to their avarice and domineering spirit. The ple¬ 
beians were free landed proprietors, without possessing the 
franchise; but they were obliged to pay the tributum or 
land-tax, and serve in the armies without pay. During 
the time of their military service, their fields, if they 
were not overrun or taken by the enemy, were at all events 
neglected. The harvest time generally manifested the deplo¬ 
rable consequences of this state of things, and the small landed 
proprietors, to escape from momentary distress, had to borrow 
of their wealthy neighbours, who were generally patricians, 
at an exorbitant rate of interest of from ten to twelve per 
cent. The law of debt at Rome, as in many other ancient 
states, was extremely severe, and if the debtor did not pay 
back the borrowed money at the stipulated time, his person 
and estate were forfeited to the creditor, who might seize 


SECESSION OF THE PLEBS. 


399 


and employ him as if he were his slave, while his family sank 
deeper and deeper into misery. The patricians, who alone 
were entitled to occupy the public or domain land conquered 
in war, and had it cultivated by their clients, who did not serve 
in the armies, were to a great extent exempted from the mis¬ 
fortunes which might befal the plebeians, and which appear to 
have become more serious every year from the time of their 
incorporation with the Roman state. The oppression exer¬ 
cised by the patricians became in the end unbearable, and as 
the law was all in favour of the hard-hearted creditors, the 
plebeians in b. c. 495 rose in open rebellion, and in the fol¬ 
lowing year seceded in arms to a hill a few miles distant from 
Rome, where they encamped, fully resolved not to return until 
they should obtain redress of their grievances. But Menenius 
Agrippa, who was sent to them as deputy by the senate, pre¬ 
vailed upon them, by the well-known fable of the Belly and 
the Members, to abandon their useless scheme, and promised 
that the evils under which they suffered should be remedied. 
A compact was then concluded between the two estates, that 
all who had lost their freedom through debt should be restored, 
and that five tribunes of the plebs should be appointed, whose 
business it sh ould be to protect the plebeians against any abuse 
of the authority of a magistrate, and whose persons were to be 
sacred and inviolate. At the same time two plebeian aediles 
were appointed, who had the superintendence of public build¬ 
ing's, and exercised a control over usurers and merchants, to 
prevent unnecessary dearth of provisions. After the conclu¬ 
sion of this solemn compact the plebeians quitted the hill, 
which, from these transactions, was ever after called the Sacred 
Mount. 

5. The contest between the two orders had now com¬ 
menced, and some important advantages had been gained 
by the plebeians. Throughout the noble struggles which 
succeeded, the patricians acted more or less the part of an 


400 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


exclusive caste, while the plebeians represented what we may 
call the people. The stubbornness, tenacity, and selfishness 
with which the former clung to their rights and privileges, 
formed the strongest impediment to the steady and progressive 
development of the institutions of the state. If they, with 
their clients, had succeeded in maintaining their exclusive 
rights of citizenship, Eome would have become a rigid oli¬ 
garchy, its place in the history of the world would not have 
risen above that of many other petty republics, and in the end 
it would have miserably perished from mere want of vitality. 
This latter principle rested with the plebeians, and in their 
struggles against aristocratic exclusiveness, it bore the noblest 
fruit, and made Eome the mistress of the world. 

6. Shortly after the secession of the plebs, during which 
the cultivation of the fields had been almost entirely neglected, 
Eome suffered from dearth and famine, and when at length 
ships laden with corn arrived from Sicily, the insolent patri¬ 
cian C. Marcius Coriolanus, proposed that none of it should 
be given to the plebeians unless they consented to renounce 
the advantages they had gained by their secession to the Sacred 
Mount. At this the plebeians were so exasperated, that they 
outlawed him and obliged him, in b. c. 491, to take refuge 
among the Yolscians, whom he persuaded to make an inroad 
into the Eoman territory, promising that he would lead them 
as their commander. Under his guidance they advanced within 
five miles of the city, and nothing could induce him to abandon 
his hostile undertaking against his own country, until he was 
at length prevailed upon by the tears and entreaties of his 
mother and his wife to retreat. He is said to have died soon 
after overwhelmed with grief and shame. The Yolscians, 
however, retained possession of some of the Latin towns 
which they had conquered. In the year b. c. 486, the 
same Spurius Cassius, who had brought about the equal 
alliance with the Latin towns, concluded one on the same 


SP. CASSIUS. 


401 


terms with the Hernicans. By this union of the Romans, 
Latins, and Hernicans, fresh strength w r as gained against 
the iEquians and Volscians. This same year, in which 
Cassius concluded the league with the Hernicans, is also 
remarkable as the one in which an agrarian law was first 
mentioned at Rome. The Roman state possessed very exten¬ 
sive domains of land conquered in war, which were not the 
property of any individual, but the use of which was given 
up to the patricians on condition of their paying to the trea¬ 
sury a small sum as an acknowledgment. This domain 
land (ager publicus) however, came gradually to be regarded 
by its occupants as their private property, which they had 
cultivated by their clients and slaves, and for which they did 
not always think it necessary to pay the rent to the state, 
for they themselves and they alone constituted the state. 
The plebeians from time to time demanded likewise to be 
permitted to occupy portions of the public land; but when¬ 
ever such an agrarian bill {lex agraria ) was brought forward, 
it was met by the most determined opposition on the part of 
the patricians. Sp. Cassius was the first Roman that is known 
to have proposed and carried an agrarian law r , ordaining that 
a certain portion of the public land should be distributed 
among those plebeians who did not possess any landed property. 
The noble efforts of this man to prevent the growth of pau¬ 
perism and to transform the poor into industrious husbandmen, 
who at all times constituted the mainstay of the Roman republic, 
were ill requited, for in the year after his consulship, b. c. 485, 
he was sentenced to death by the patricians and beheaded. 
The house in which he had lived was levelled with the ground, 
and the spot itself was declared accursed. Although the law 
had been passed in due form, the patricians prevented its being 
carried into effect by every means in their power. Many years 
afterwards, b. c. 47 3, a tribune Genucius arraigned the consuls 
before the commonalty for not allowing the law to be put in 


402 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


operation, but on tbe morning of the day before the trial the 
tribune was found murdered in bis own house. These acts of 
violence and injustice for a time intimidated the friends of the 
plebeians; but their perseverance did not abate, and ulti¬ 
mately compelled the pride of the patricians to succumb. 

7. By these internal feuds and disputes, Borne was so 
much weakened that the Etruscans and iEquians were 
enabled to conquer one town after another; and when at 
length, in n. c. 477, the whole clan of the Fabii, amounting 
to three hundred and six men, marched out against them, 
they were all slain by the Etruscans on the banks of the river 
Cremera ; one only had remained in Rome, and he became the 
ancestor of the Fabii, whom we meet with in later times. Not 
long before this event, the Fabii had been proud and haughty 
champions of their order against the plebeians, but afterwards 
siding with the oppressed, they brought upon themselves the 
hatred of the patricians. This seems to have called forth in 
them a desire to emigrate ; they proposed to the senate to carry 
on a long protracted war against Yeii at their own expense. 
The request was readily granted, and amid the good wishes of 
the people they marched against the enemy. They ravaged the 
country, and were successful in many an enterprise; but their 
success diminished their caution, and being drawn into an 
ambuscade by their desire to capture a herd of cattle which 
had been sent out on purpose, they were surrounded by the 
enemy, and cut to pieces to a man. This story of the Fabii 
is only a popular legend, though not without an historical, 
foundation. 

8. In the south and west the iEquians and Yolscians con¬ 
tinued their inroads into the Roman territory. The former, 
so the story runs, had concluded peace with Rome, but their 
commander Gracchus Cloelius nevertheless led his troops to 
mount Algidus, and thence they renewed their inroads every 
year. A Roman embassy appearing in his camp was scorn- 


L. QUINCTfUS CINCINNATUS. 


403 


My received, and the Roman consul L. Minucius was 
defeated by the iEquians and besieged in his own camp. 
Five horsemen, who had escaped before the lines were closed 
around the camp, brought the disastrous news to Rome, and 
the senate appointed L. Quinctius Cincinnatus dictator, b. c. 
458. The news of his elevation was brought to him on his 
farm, which consisted of four jugera or acres, and which he cul¬ 
tivated with his own hands. The next day at dawn the dic¬ 
tator appeared in the Forum, and nominated L. Tarquitius his 
master of the horse. All men capable of bearing arms were 
called upon to enlist, and in three days he marched with his 
army to mount Algidus. He surrounded the iEquians, and 
the Romans in the camp having received a signal that suc¬ 
cour had arrived, broke through the surrounding enemy. A 
desperate fight then commenced; it lasted a long time, and 
when in the end the iEquians found that they were surrounded, 
they implored the dictator to spare them. Gracchus Cloelius 
and the other commanders were put in chains, and the rest 
were obliged to lay down their arms and pass under the yoke. 
The town of Corbio and the iEquian camp fell into the hands 
of the victors. Cincinnatus then returned to Rome in 
triumph, and was rewarded with a golden crown. After 
having been invested with the dictatorship for no more than 
sixteen days, he laid down his office and returned to his 
farm. This is said to have happened in b. c. 458, but the 
whole story, as related by Livy, seems to be only a beautiful 
poetical legend about the historical fact that Minucius was 
rescued by succour sent to him from Rome. The iEquians 
were indeed defeated, but the war against them was continued 
with varying success, until b. c. 446, when in the battle of 
Corbio they were so much weakened that for a time they were 
unable again to take up arms against Rome. 

9. There existed in ancient Rome no code of written 
laws; the administration of justice, based upon hereditary 


104 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


usage, was altogether in the hands of the patricians, who 
were often guilty of acts of the most flagrant injustice. With 
the view to prevent their arbitrary proceedings, and to 
acquire a knowledge of the law and its forms, the plebeians 
began to demand that a code of laws should be drawn up. 
The patricians, regarding this as an encroachment upon their 
prerogatives, offered a long and violent opposition to the 
demand. During these disputes, party animosity reached the 
highest pitch. In b. c. 471, the tribune Publilius Yolero, amid 
the most fearful opposition, carried several laws, which enacted 
that the plebeian magistrates (tribunes and aediles) should 
be elected by the plebeian comitia of the tribes, and that these 
same comitia should have the power of passing resolutions 
( plebiscitei) on matters affecting the interest of the whole state. 
The excitement produced by these measures divided Rome into 
two hostile camps, and this feeling, together with a terrible 
epidemic which carried off large numbers of all ranks, 
weakened Rome so much, that the ASquians and Volscians 
dared to advance on their predatory excursions, which have 
already been noticed, as far as the very gates of Rome; and 
Herdonius, a Sabine adventurer, with a band of runaway slaves 
and exiles, who had actually taken possession of the Capitol, 
was expelled only with great difficulty. The first formal 
demand for a written code of laws was made in b. c. 462 by 
the tribune C. Terentillus Arsa, and although it was violently 
opposed, the idea could not be crushed; similar demands were 
afterwards repeated, and the plebeians were determined to 
carry their point. In b. c. 457, the number of tribunes was 
increased from five to ten, it having probably been found that 
the previous number was insufficient to afford protection in all 
cases. Three years later, the bill of Terentillus Arsa was 
taken up again, and it was at last agreed that the laws should 
be revised; it was further resolved as a preliminary step, that 
three senators should be sent to Athens to study the laws and 


THE DECEMVIR ATE. 


405 


constitution of that republic and of other Greek states, and to 
bring back a report of such laws and institutions as it might 
seem desirable to adopt at Rome. 


CHAPTER IY. 

FROM THE DECEMVIRAL LEGISLATION DOWN TO THE 
FINAL SUBJUGATION OF LATIUM. 

1. After the return of the ambassadors from Greece, both 
orders agreed that a commission of ten patricians should he 
appointed to draw up a code of laws, that they should have full 
power to act as they thought fit, and that for the time all other 
magistrates, perhaps wfith the exception of the tribunes, should 
have their powers suspended. The decemvirs who entered 
upon their office in b. c. 451, performed the duty intrusted to 
them honestly and satisfactorily; but as at the end of the 
year their task was not completed, they were unhesitatingly 
permitted to continue their office and their labours for another 
year. The expectations of the people, however, were now 
fearfully disappointed, and every kind of cruelty was resorted 
to in punishing those plebeians who ventured to express an 
opinion upon the proceedings of the Ten ; nay, an aged and 
brave plebeian whose opposition they feared most, and who 
was serving against the enemies of Rome, was drawn into an 
ambuscade and assassinated by his own countrymen. At the 
close of the second year, when the legislation was completed 
and the laws were engraven upon twelve tables, the decemvirs 
still persisted in retaining their office, and would perhaps 
have succeeded in their usurpation, had not the haughty 
Appius Claudius, the most influential among them, by his 
brutal lust and injustice called forth a fearful outbreak of 



406 


HISTORY OF ROME* 


the smothered discontent. He had conceived a desire to 
possess Virginia, the beautiful daughter of the plebeian Vir- 
ginius, who was already betrothed to another. In order to 
gain this object, he prevailed upon one of his clients to 
declare the maiden to be a runaway slave of his own, and to 
claim her as his property before the tribunal of the decemvir. 
A large concourse of people assembled in the Forum to 
witness the trial. Claudius assigned the maiden to his 
client; but her father having obtained permission to take 
leave of her, plunged a knife into her heart to save his child 
from dishonour. 

2. The excitement in the city was immense : the authority 
of the decemvirs was set at defiance by the people, and the 
army, which was engaged against the Sabines, on learning 
what had happened, quitted the camp and took possession 
of the Aventine, resolved to leave Rome and seek a new 
home elsewhere. The plebeians with their families then 
proceeded to the Sacred Mount. Valerius and Horatius, two 
of the most popular among the patricians, were despatched to 
the plebeians to treat with them on any terms they might 
think fit. The plebeians demanded the right of appeal against 
any magistrate, an amnesty for themselves, and that the decem¬ 
virs should be deposed. All was granted and sanctioned by 
the senate, and the plebeians returned to Rome. Appius 
Claudius was thrown into prison and died by his own hand; 
one of his colleagues perished in the same manner, and the 
remaining eight went into exile. The laws of the Twelve Tables, 
however, remained in force, and ever after formed the basis of the 
Roman law. The only constitutional change which they seem 
to have introduced was that the patricians became members of 
the local tribes which had previously consisted of the plebeians 
alone. But this was for the present no great advantage, for 
the assembly of the tribes did not as yet possess any legislative 
power; the plebeians were still excluded from the highest 


CONNUBIUM-CENSORSHIP. 


407 


magistracy and from a share in the public land, and mar¬ 
riages could not be legally contracted between patricians and 
plebeians. The mere fact, however, of the laws being now 
fixed was a great gain, inasmuch as the plebeians were no 
longer exposed to the arbitrary proceedings of the patricians. 

3. After the recent reconciliation, the patricians still con¬ 
tinued to annoy the plebeians in a variety of ways, and the 
hotter spirits among the latter were inclined to retaliate, but 
as a body the plebeians were moderate, though firm, and it 
was evident that they were aiming at nothing short of a per¬ 
fect equality of rights with the patricians. In b. c. 445 the 
tribune Canuleius brought forward a bill demanding for the 
plebeians the right of contracting legal marriages with patri¬ 
cians (connubium ), and the bill was passed amid the fiercest 
opposition. Another bill proposed that one of the consuls 
should always be a plebeian; but after long and violent 
discussions of this question, it was agreed that, instead of 
consuls, military tribunes with consular power should some¬ 
times be elected, who should be taken indiscriminately from 
the plebeians as well as from the patricians. The senate, 
however, retained the power of determining in each year 
whether consuls or consular tribunes should be elected. The 
ancient and venerable dignity of the consulship was thus 
saved for the patricians, who in most cases also contrived to 
keep the military tribuneship in their own hands; and in 
order that the plebeians might never enjoy the full powers of 
the consulship, two censors were appointed in b. c. 443, whose 
functions had previously belonged to the consuls. This new 
office was accessible to patricians only, and was filled anew 
every five years, which period was called a lustrum , though 
the censors had to perform their duties within the term of 
eighteen months. They had to make up and keep lists of 
all the Eomans, in which senators, equites, and the rest of 
the citizens, were classed according to their rank and property; 


408 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


they collected the rent for the domain land, superintended the 
building of temples, and tho making of roads and bridges, and 
exercised a severe control over the moral conduct of citizens, 
offences against which they were empowered to punish by 
depriving a person of his civil rights or of his rank and 
station in society. 

4. The establishment of the connubium , or right of con¬ 
tracting legal marriages between the two orders, seems to 
have somewhat softened their animosity; but patrician malice 
and intrigue nevertheless did not easily allow an opportunity 
to pass, where the plebeians could be humbled. In b. c. 440 
Rome was visited by a famine, and all endeavours of the 
government to mitigate the evil were of no avail. A wealthy 
plebeian, Spurius Maelius, generously purchased large quantities 
of grain, and sold it at a moderate price to the famishing 
people. The popularity he thus acquired alarmed the patricians; 
they feared treacherous plots and conspiracies, and charged 
him with aiming at regal power. The aged Quinctius Cin- 
cinnatus, who was appointed dictator in b. c. 439, summoned 
Maelius before his tribunal; and as Maelius prepared to defend 
himself, Servilius Ahala, the dictator’s master of the horse, 
slew him in broad daylight in the midst of the Forum. 

5. During these internal struggles, the Roman armies, 
in which the plebeians manfully and bravely defended 
their country, fought many successful battles against foreign 
enemies. Allied with and strengthened by the Latins 
and Hernicans, they repeatedly defeated the Volscians 
and iEquians, and reduced their territories. The town 
of Fidenae, which had been colonised bv the Romans at 
an early period, but had committed many outrages, was 
destroyed in b. c. 426, notwithstanding the assistance it 
obtained from the Etruscan city of Veii. This led to a 
desperate war with Veii, against which Rome directed all her 
forces, and which was taken, in b. c. 396, by Camillus, after a 


CAMILLUS-THE GAULS. 


409 


siege of ten years. The account of the manner in which Veii 
was captured is nothing but a beautiful lay, in which that 
city acts a similar part to that of Troy in the Trojan legends; 
but there can be no doubt that its inhabitants were partly 
slain, and partly sold as slaves. During the protracted war 
against Yeii, the senate of its own accord decreed that in 
future pay should be given to the soldiers from the public 
treasury, for until then they had had to equip and maintain 
themselves. This measure enabled the government to keep 
its armies longer in uninterrupted service than would other¬ 
wise have been possible, and the men became no doubt more 
willing to serve than they had been before. Camillus, the 
proud conqueror of Yeii, celebrated a magnificent triumph 
but as his soldiers considered themselves robbed by him of 
their legitimate share in the booty, and as he opposed the 
proposal to distribute the territory of Yeii among the plebeians, 
he drew upon himself the hatred of the people. In b. c. 391, 
he was charged with having secreted a portion of the spoil 
taken at Yeii; and in order to escape condemnation, he went 
into exile, at a time when Rome needed her great commander 
more than ever. 

6. She was now on the eve of a conflict with a branch 
of one of the most widely spread nations of Europe, the 
Celts or Gauls, who are said to have crossed the Alps 
as early as the reign of Tarquinius Priscus. Soon after 
their arrival in Italy they drove the Etruscans from the 
plains in the north and east of the Apennines, and for a 
time those mountains seem to have formed the barrier between 
them and the Etruscans; but in b. c. 391, swarms of them 
crossed the Apennines, and under the command of their chief 
Brennus, laid siege to the Etruscan town of Clusium. The 
Clusines solicited the assistance of the Romans, the most 
powerful neighbours of the Etruscans, and the Romans at first 
sent only ambassadors to the Gauls to induce them not to 


410 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


molest the Etruscans; but as their envoys did not succeed, 
a battle ensued between the Gauls and Etruscans, in which 
the Roman ambassadors took part and slew one of the Gallic 
chiefs. This violation of the law of nations enraged the 
barbarians, and as the Romans haughtily refused to surrender 
the offenders, the Gauls at once abandoned Clusium and set 
out against Rome. On the banks of the little river Allia, 
about eleven miles from the city, they met the Roman 
army, and defeated it so completely that only a few escaped 
by flight to Yeii and Rome, b. c. 390 ; Rome itself, from which 
the women and children had withdrawn, was in a defence¬ 
less state, and fell into the hands of the barbarians. The 
city became a prey to the flames, and eighty old men of high 
rank, who had sat down in the Forum to devote themselves 
as a propitiatory sacrifice to the gods, were massacred. The 
Capitol alone, to which many of the most valuable treasures 
had been carried, was occupied and defended by the Romans. 
Its garrison, commanded by the brave Manlius Capitolinus, 
offered a gallant resistance, while the Gauls like true barbarians, 
intoxicated with their recent victory, abandoned themselves to 
every kind of excess, in consequence of which their ranks were 
considerably thinned during the siege, which lasted seven 
months. This is said to have induced Brennus at length to 
accept one thousand pounds of gold, and to quit the territory 
of Rome ; but the haughty Gaul increased the gold by throw¬ 
ing his sword into the scale. At this moment Camillus, who 
had been recalled from his exile by the army assembled at 
Yeii, arrived at the gates of Rome, and defeated the Gauls 
in a battle in which all of them were slain, and all the booty 
carried off was recovered. This is the famous story of the 
sacking of Rome by the Gauls in b. c. 390, the latter part of 
w T hich is fictitious, for we know that the Gauls left Rome 
unmolested, because their own country in the north was 
invaded by another enemy. 


REBUILDING OF ROME. 


411 


7 . After the departure of the Gauls, the Roman people 
were so much disheartened, that they were unwilling to rebuild 
their ruined houses, and proposed to migrate to Veii and 
establish themselves in that deserted city. The patricians, 
however, feeling a stronger attachment to the place with which 
all their ancient associations were connected, by great exer¬ 
tion prevailed upon the people to give up this scheme; and 
in order that such a thought might never be conceived again, 
the people were allowed to demolish the houses still standing 
at Veii, and use the materials in rebuilding their own homes 
at Rome. Scarcely had Rome been hastily rebuilt, with 
crooked and narrow streets and small houses, when the patri¬ 
cians again began to enforce their ancient privileges, and 
above all, to carry into execution, with the utmost rigour 
upon the impoverished people, the severe laws of debt, which 
had been retained in the Twelve Tables. The plebeians 
having already suffered severely during the Gallic invasion 
and the rebuilding of their houses, excited the sympathy of 
Manlius Capitolinus, the gallant defender of the Capitol, who 
now came forward as their champion, proposing a reduction 
of the debts, and distribution of public land. This so much 
incensed his brother patricians against him, that, under the 
futile pretext of his aiming at kingly power, they procured 
his condemnation. The saviour of the Capitol was hurled 
down from the Tarpeian rock, his house was razed to the 
ground, and his name was treated as that of an accursed per¬ 
son. This disgraceful deed was perpetrated in b. c. 384. 

8. During the humiliation of Rome, the Hernicans and 
many of the Latin towns renounced their alliance with her, 
and the Volscians, iEquians, and Etruscans also took arms 
again. The last three nations were successively humbled by 
Camillus, who was the soul of all Roman undertakings during 
this period, and the towns of Sutrium and Nepete in Etruria 
received Roman colonists. Some of the Latin towns also 


412 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


were subdued, and it may be said on the whole, that Rome 
was rapidly recovering from the wounds of the Gallic conquest, 
and the evils that followed in its train. But the distress of 
the poor was ever on the increase, although in b. c. 383 the 
senate had assigned to the plebeians the Pomptine district. 
The murder of Manlius also contributed once more to rouse 
the plebeians to action against their insolent oppressors. Id 
b. c. 376, C. Licinius Stolo and Lucius Sextius, two bold and 
energetic tribunes, took upon themselves the task of stopping 
the state in its downward career. They brought forward 
three rogations or bills—1st. That consuls should again be 
elected as of old, but that one of them should always be a 
plebeian; 2d. That no man should be allowed to occupy of 
the public land more than five hundred jugera, and that after 
a due measurement, the surplus should be taken from the 
former occupants, and assigned to the plebeians as their full 
property; and, 3d. That the interest already paid upon debts 
should be deducted from the principal, and that the remainder 
should be paid off in three annual instalments. The patri¬ 
cians, for a period of nearly ten years, contrived to thwart 
these proposals, and left no means untried to render them 
abortive; but all their efforts, and even the elevation of 
Camillus to the dictatorship, were of no avail against the firm¬ 
ness and perseverance of the tribunes, who continued to pre¬ 
vent both the election of magistrates and the levies for the 
armies ; for it must be understood that the tribuneship— 
chiefly through the power of the Veto , that is, of prohibiting 
public acts—had become a much more influential office than at 
its first institution. At length, in b. c. 367, after a long period 
of strife and anarchy, the patricians were obliged to yield; 
the proposals of the tribunes became law, and in b. c. 366, L. 
Sextius was the first plebeian consul. But in order to reserve 
for themselves as much as possible, the patricians contrived to 
etrip the consulship of the power of jurisdiction in civil cases, 


WARS AGAINST THE GAULS. 


413 


which was now assigned to the praetor, an officer who was to 
be taken from the patricians exclusively. These precautions, 
however, were of no avail, for the year b. c. 356 saw the first 
plebeian dictator, 351 the first plebeian censor, 337 the first 
plebeian praetor ; and in b. c. 300 the priestly offices of pon¬ 
tiff and augur were opened to the plebeians. By these succes¬ 
sive measures, the equalisation of the two orders was gradually 
accomplished, and Rome, internally united and strong, was in 
a condition to enter upon the great career marked out for her 
by Providence. 

9. The reconciliation of the two orders, after the passing 
of the Licinian laws, was celebrated by the dedication of a 
temple to Concord by the aged Camillus, who soon after died 
of the plague which raged at Rome for several years. The 
good results of the unity and harmony thus restored soon 
became manifest in the contests of the republic with her foreign 
enemies, especially in the conflicts with the hordes of Gauls 
who wandered through Italy, laying waste the country, and 
supporting the enemies of Rome. It was in the course of 
these Gallic wars that the first plebeian dictator was appointed, 
b. c. 356, and that Manlius Torquatus and Valerius Corvus 
gained their immortal fame by deeds of heroism which were 
celebrated in Roman song. 

In b. c. 358, when the Gauls had pitched their 
camp on the banks of the river Allia, a Gaul of gigantic 
stature stepped upon the bridge which separated the two 
armies, and challenged any Roman to fight with him. 
Titus Manlius, a noble young Roman, after having obtained 
the consul’s permission, accepted the challenge. Lightly 
armed he advanced against the boastful Gaul, and approached 
so closely, that the barbarian was unable to make use of his 
arms; he then pierced him through the side and belly, and 
when the enemy thus lay prostrate, stripped him of his gold 
chain (torques) and put it round his own neck. From this 


414 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


circumstance he was ever after called T. Manlius Torquatus. 
Eight years later, b. c. 350, when another host of Gauls had 
advanced to the very neighbourhood of Rome, a powerful Gaul, 
according to the usual practice of his nation, challenged the 
bravest of the Romans to single combat. M. Valerius, a young 
tribune of the soldiers, accepted the challenge. When the 
combat began, a raven which had settled upon the helmet of 
the Roman flew at each onset into the face of the Gaul, who 
being unable to see, was slain by Valerius; the young 
Roman received from this miraculous ally the surname of 
Corvus. The successes gained by the Romans in these wars 
with the Gauls were in a great measure owing to the improve¬ 
ments in their armour and tactics which had been introduced 
by Camillus; and the same progress in the military art, 
together with the renewed alliance with Latium, enabled the 
Romans to engage in a contest with the Samnites, a powerful 
nation, not inferior to them either in valour or love of liberty. 

10. The Samnites, the principal nation of the Sabellian 
race, occupied a country far more extensive than that of the 
Romans and Latins put together; they were more powerful 
than the Romans and Latins, together with whom they formed 
the great stock of nations which we have called specially 
Italian. In the earlier times they had colonised Capua and 
the plains of Campania and Lucania, but in the course of 
time these colonies had become estranged from the mother 
country. What the Samnites needed to make them successful 
against their foreign enemies, was union among themselves, 
for they consisted of four cantons which were but loosely 
connected. At the time when they came into conflict with 
Rome, they had been in alliance with her for ten years, and 
the cause of the hostility between them is related as follows. 
The Samnites were involved in a war against the Sidicines, 
who being too weak applied for assistance to Capua. The 
Campanians, one of the most effeminate and luxurious peoples 


FIRST SA UNITE WAR. 


415 


of Italy, willingly granted the request, but were defeated by 
the Samnites in two battles. The Campanians then applied 
to Eome for assistance ; but as the Romans scrupled to sup¬ 
port strangers against their own allies, the Campanians, it is 
said, offered to acknowledge the supremacy of Rome, if she 
would but comply with their request. The scruple being 
thus removed, Rome at once resolved to succour them. 
From this account we might expect hereafter to find the 
Campanians in the relation of subjects to Rome, but such 
is not the case; the fact is, that Rome in supporting them 
evidently violated the treaty with Samnium; and the above 
mentioned story was devised only to disguise her unjust con¬ 
duct. In this light it was viewed by the Samnites, and the 
war between the two nations broke out in b. c. 343, and lasted 
until 341. The series of wars, of which this was only the 
first, was destined to decide which of the two nations was to 
have the supremacy in Italy, and through it that of the whole 
of the ancient world. In the first campaign, the Romans under 
M. Valerius Corvus gained a great victory on mount Gaurus. 
The second consular army which was destined to invade Sam¬ 
nium, came through the carelessness of the consul into a 
position among the mountains where it certainly would have 
been destroyed, but for the boldness and skill of Decius Mus, 
who contrived to get possession of an eminence overhanging the 
enemy, and thus enabled his countrymen to pass safely through 
the defile. During the second year of the war, nothing of any 
importance was achieved, partly in consequence of disturbances 
at Rome arising from the severity of the law of debt, and partly 
on account of the disaffection of the Latins. The Romans, 
therefore, thought it prudent to conclude a peace with the 
Samnites, in which the old alliance with them was renewed, 
and fair terms were granted. 

11. The Campanians, now forsaken by the Romans, saw 
no other means of safety except in an alliance with Latium, in 


416 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


consequence of which Rome, in b. c. 340, at once began hos¬ 
tile operations against the Latins. The Latins, however, would 
have liked to avoid active hostilities, and to come to an ami¬ 
cable understanding with Rome, which, though allied with them 
on equal terms, had always contrived to domineer over its con¬ 
federates. The Latins, therefore, now demanded that Rome 
and Latium should be really united as one state, that one of 
the consuls should be taken from the Latins, and that one- 
half of the senators should always be Latins. This demand, 
reasonable as it was, exasperated all classes of the Romans to 
such a degree that war was declared at once. During the first 
campaign the Latins transferred the war to Campania, and at 
the foot of Mount Vesuvius a great battle was fought, in 
which one of the consuls, P. Decius, for the purpose of secur¬ 
ing the victory to his own countrymen, caused himself to be 
devoted to death by a priest, and then rushed among the 
Latins like a spirit of destruction, until he himself was slain. 
During the same campaign, Manlius Torquatus, the other 
consul, exhibited an example of Roman severity which was 
revolting even to his own countrymen. Orders had been given 
that no man should engage in fighting out of his own line. 
The consul’s son Manlius, on being taunted and provoked by 
a haughty Latin from Tusculum, was unable to control his 
anger, and slew the Tusculan. Delighted with his victory, he 
brought the spoils of his enemy before his father, but the latter 
ordered the lictor to carry his threat into effect, by putting 
his son to death. The comrades of young Manlius honoured 
him with splendid funeral ceremonies, and the unnatural father 
was ever after shunned and scorned on account of this act. 

12. After the first defeat, the Latins were deserted by the 
Campanians, who obtained favourable terms from the Romans. 
The Latins, however, continued the war two years longer, and 
at first made the most desperate efforts to maintain their inde¬ 
pendence. But another defeat in the second campaign led 


SUBJUGATION OF LATIUM. 


417 


\ 

to the dissolution of the Latin confederacy, after which most 
of the towns surrendered one after another. Their example 
was followed by their allies the Yolscians, so that, in b.c. 338, 
the subjugation of the country of the Latins and Yolscians 
was completed. The conquered people, however, were treated 
with moderation ; some obtained the full Roman franchise, 
such as the towns of Aricia, Lanuvium, Nomentum, and Pedum, 
while others recewed the franchise without the suffrage ; others 
again became Roman municipia, that is, had an internal 
administration independent of Rome. Some of the more impor¬ 
tant towns, however, were humbled and weakened by their noble 
families being sent into exile, or by being deprived of portions of 
their territory. Each Latin town, moreover, was isolated as 
much as possible from the others, that is to say, the commercium 
and connubium among the several towns were abolished. The 
question as to whether Rome should be only one in the con¬ 
federacy of the Latin towns, or rule over them as their mis¬ 
tress, was now decided for ever, and she secured her power 
in the newly conquered countries by the means already men¬ 
tioned, and still more by the establishment of Roman and 
Latin colonies, which were in reality military garrisons sta¬ 
tioned in the conquered places, and generally received one- 
third of the landed property of the original inhabitants. 

13. During the period of the wars against the Samnites 
and Latins, several important measures were adopted at Rome, 
partly to prevent the law of debt from weighing too heavily upon 
the plebeians, and partly to check abuses of the powers of the 
magistrates. In the year b. c. 339, the dictator Q. Publilius 
Philo enacted three important laws, the first of which abo¬ 
lished the veto of the patrician curiae on legal enactments 
passed by the comitia centuriata; the second gave to plebi- 
scita the full power of laws binding on the whole nation; and 
the third ordained that one of the censors should always be a 
plebeian. * The last vestiges of the patricians, as a privileged 

2 E 


418 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


order, thus gradually disappeared one after another, without 
any great effort being made on the part of the patricians to 
maintain their once exclusive rights. The Roman republic 
now consisted of the Roman citizens, both patrician and ple¬ 
beian, the Latins, and the allies as they were termed, though 
in reality they were the subjects of Rome, who provided the 
greater part of her armies in the wars against her more distant 
enemies. 


CHAPTER V. 

FROM THE SUBJUGATION OF LATIUM TO THAT OF ALL ITALY. 

1. The success of the Romans seems to have awakened 
the jealousy of the Samnites, and the Romans observing this 
feeling endeavoured to strengthen themselves, partly by 
concluding treaties of alliance, but more especially by esta¬ 
blishing colonies, that is, military garrisons on or near the 
frontiers of Samnium. Such a colony was founded in b. c. 
328, at Fregellae, a Volscian town, which had been con¬ 
quered and destroyed by the Samnites, to whom, accord¬ 
ingly, the territory belonged. This led to disputes and 
even threats on the part of the Samnites; but war was not 
declared until b. c. 326, when the Samnites had sent 
reinforcements to Neapolis in Campania, which was then at 
war with Rome. Neapolis soon after concluded peace, 
but the Samnites were indemnified for the loss of this ally 
by Lucania renouncing its alliance with Rome. The 
Tarentines also supported Samnium. In the first campaign 
a Roman army marched into Apulia, part of which was allied 
with the Samnites, and where with great difficulty the Romans 
made themselves masters of some towns, but afterwards gained 



SECOND SAMNITE WAR. 


419 


a great victory. The Samnites then obtained a truce for 
one year, after the expiration of which a body of them 
entered Latium and gained over some of the Latin towns, 
while the Roman army was in great danger in Apulia. 
Rome, however, was saved by the Latin towns returning to 
their duty, and thus enabling her to drive the enemy from 
Latium. Meanwhile, in b. c. 322, her arms in Apulia 
also were successful; Luceria and many smaller towns both 
in Apulia and in Samnium were conquered, and Fregellae 
was evacuated by the Samnites. The latter now offered to 
treat for peace, but the demands made by the Romans 
were of such a nature that the Samnites could not accept 
them. 

2. After this unsuccessful attempt at negotiation, the 
Samnites made every effort to maintain their independence. 
Luceria was closely besieged by them, and in b. c. 321, the 
Romans, by the imprudent conduct of their consuls, Veturius 
and Postumius, lost nearly all the advantages they had gained 
in their previous campaigns; for the army being surrounded 
on all sides in the mountain pass of Caudium, and defeated 
in a fearful battle, was obliged to surrender. The survivors 
had to give up their arms and pass under the yoke, a 
symbolical act by which an army acknowledged itself to be 
vanquished. Pontius, the noble and modest commander of 
the Samnites, again offered fair terms of peace; these were 
accepted by the Roman commanders, and the army was 
then allowed to return home. But the senate not only 
refused to ratify the peace, but decreed that those who had 
concluded it should be given up in chains to the enemy, 
as persons that had deceived them. Pontius refused to 
accept them, and the war was continued by the Romans 
with redoubled vigour, to wipe off the disgrace of Caudium. 
Great victories are henceforth ascribed to the Romans to 
make up for the great defeat. The first important advan- 


420 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


tages were gained in Apulia, where Papirius Cursor dis¬ 
tinguished himself; but Fabius Maximus was defeated in 
a great battle at Lautulae, in consequence of which many 
towns revolted from Rome. The sufferings of the Samnites, 
however, were great, and their strength gradually sank. 
In b. c. 314 they were defeated in several engagements; in 
the following year Fregellae was recovered, together with 
several other towns, and the submission of Campania and 
Apulia was secured by various means. Rome had in fact 
the fairest prospects of speedily and thoroughly humbling her 
enemies, had not other events in different quarters prevented 
this consummation for a time. 

3. The Etruscans, who had long been apprehensive of 
Rome’s growing power, took up arms against her in b. c. 
311, and thus obliged her to divide her forces. The 
Romans accordingly not being able to direct all their 
strength against the Samnites, suffered a great defeat near 
Allifae, and the legions in Samnium were in great distress. 
Under these circumstances Papirius Cursor, being appointed 
dictator, in b. c. 309, hastened to their assistance, and so 
completely defeated the Samnites, that they took to flight, 
leaving their camp in the hands of the enemy. But the Samnites 
were then joined by the Marsians, Pelignians, and Umbrians. 
The last of these were indeed soon brought to submission by 
Fabius Maximus ; but a great coalition was forming against 
Rome, in which the Hernicans and iEquians also took part, 
and which gave the Samnites fresh hopes. Notwithstanding 
all this, however, Rome’s power was irresistible ; the war 
against Etruria was near its end, the Hernicans were easily 
overpowered, and the consuls Q. Marcius and P. Cornelius, 
directing their united forces against the Samnites, put them 
to flight in all directions, b. c. 306. The coalition on which 
they had relied being broken up, and their armies being 
defeated, they concluded a short truce in the hope of obtain- 


HERNICANS, -<EQUIANS, ETRUSCANS DEFEATED. 421 

ing peace on tolerable terms. When hostilities were recom¬ 
menced, the Romans ravaged Samninm far and wide, until 
the Samnites, after another defeat at Bovianum in b. c. 305, 
were completely crushed. Negotiations for peace accordingly 
were commenced, and the Samnites were obliged to accept 
the terms dictated by Rome, to give up their supremacy over 
Lucania, as well as their alliance with the Marsians, Pelig- 
nians, Marrucinians, and Frentanians, while Rome reserved to 
herself the right to interfere in all the external relations of 
Samnium. This peace, hard as it was, was acquiesced in 
because the Samnites were so much reduced that they could 
not continue the war. Thus ended the second Samnite war, 
which, had lasted from b. c. 326 to 304. 

4. The fate of the Hemicans after their reduction in b. c. 
306, was on the whole the same as that of the Latins. The 
iEquians, who all along had supported the Samnites, rose in 
a body at the time when the Samnites had already concluded 
peace with Rome. The consequence of this thoughtless insurrec¬ 
tion was that their towns in a short period were conquered one 
after another, and most of them were destroyed. About this 
same time the Romans concluded a treaty with Tarentum, in 
which it was stipulated that no Roman ships should sail 
beyond cape Lacinium. The Etruscan war above referred to 
broke out in b. c. 311, when the Etruscans, encouraged by 
the defeat of the Romans at Lautulae, hoped to be able to 
recover their ancient independence. Their country was no 
longer harassed by the wandering Celts, who had quietly 
settled down in the plains on the north and east of the 
Apennines. But the Etruscans began the war against Rome 
too late, and after it had lasted for some years, their cities 
began, in b. c. 308, to conclude peace with Rome each for 
itself for a fixed number of years. The interval between 
the second and third Samnite wars is marked only by the 
revolt of the iEquians already mentioned, and by the inva- 


422 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


sion of tlie Roman territory by a host of Celts wbo bad just 
come across the Alps. But the barbarians did not stay long, 
and having collected vast quantities of booty returned to the 
north. 

5. The peace concluded with the Samnites lasted only six 
years, of which period the Romans availed themselves for firmly 
establishing their power in the countries they had recently con¬ 
quered. The Samnites were only waiting for a favourable 
opportunity to recommence hostilities, and being led to think 
that the Romans were afraid of entering upon a fresh war, they 
resolved to try to recover the supremacy of Lucania, which 
was torn to pieces by factions. The Lucanian nobles, however, 
placed themselves under the protection of Rome, whereupon 
the Romans demanded of the Samnites to evacuate Lucania. 
This demand irritated them so much that war was declared 
at once, b. c. 298. At the same time the Etruscans again 
rose in arms, allied themselves with the Umbrians, and 
even called in the aid of Gallic mercenaries. In the first 
two years of the third Samnite war, the Samnites were 
defeated in Lucania, at Bovianum, and at Maleventum in 
Samnium itself, which was fearfully ravaged. In the third 
year all Lucania was recovered by the Romans. The 
Etruscans were not more fortunate than the Samnites, and the 
latter sent out an army to their assistance ; but all was to no 
purpose; the Roman arms were victorious everywhere, and 
a defeat of the Samnites in Campania delivered Rome from 
the fear of a revolt among her allies. But what alarmed her, 
nevertheless, was a report that the Gauls were marching 
southward, and were allied with and supported by the 
Etruscans and Umbrians. In b. c. 295, under the consuls Q. 
Fabius and P. Decius, the Romans made incredible efforts to 
meet the threatening storm. In Etruria they had suffered 
some severe reverses, but Fabius’ arrival soon produced a 
favourable change, and in the great battle of Sentinum in 


THIRD SAMNITE WAR. 


423 


Umbria, wbicb was nearly lost, the self sacrifice of Decius, 
who caused himself and the hostile army to be devoted to 
the infernal gods, gained for the Eomans a signal vietory. The 
Samnite army which had been sent into Etruria was cut to 
pieces, and twenty-five thousand Gauls and Samnites covered 
the field of battle, while eight thousand were made prisoners. 
From Umbria Fabius returned to Etruria, where he gained a 
victory over the Etruscans near Perusia. 

6. While these things were going on in the north, whfcre 
the enemies of Pome had endeavoured to unite their forces, 
another Samnite army had been engaged in fearfully ravaging 
part of Campania, but there too they are said to have been 
beaten with great loss by the Eoman army returning from 
Sentinum. In the two following years, the Eomans continued 
to be successful both in Etruria, where most of the towns 
thought it advisable to conclude peace with Eome, and in 
Samnium. The people of the latter country now exerted 
all their strength, and having enlisted all their men capable 
of bearing arms, invaded Campania. But an invasion of Sam¬ 
nium by the Eomans obliged them to return, and the Eomans 
having gained a great and decisive victory, carried off an im¬ 
mense quantity of booty. No sooner, however, had they with¬ 
drawn from Samnium than the Samnites, under the command of 
the noble-minded Pontius, again invaded Campania. At first, 
the Eomans who met the enemy were defeated, and had it not 
been for the excessive caution of the Samnites, the Eoman 
army would have been completely annihilated. But soon 
after this, in b. c. 292, the agedQ. Fabius Maximus undertaking 
the command, a fierce battle was fought, which decided the 
contest between Eome and Samnium. Twenty thousand Sam¬ 
nites were killed, and four thousand made prisoners, among 
whom was the brave Pontius. The issue of the war was now 
decided, although the submission of Samnium was delayed for 
two years longer. Pontius was led to Eome in chains, and 


424 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


then beheaded—a savage treatment of a man to whose gene¬ 
rous forbearance it had been owing that the whole Eoman 
army was not destroyed after the defeat of Caudium. The 
Samnites do not appear after this to have ventured again to 
meet their enemies in the field; and in b. c. 290 they sued for 
peace, which was granted on condition that Samnium should 
acknowledge the supremacy of Eome. The same soon after¬ 
wards became the fate of the Umbrians, Etruscans, and the 
Celtic tribes of the Senones and Boians. Numerous colonies 
were established to secure the submission of these countries, 
and Eome, having now acquired the dominion of all central 
Italy, enjoyed a few years of peace. 

7. Notwithstanding a few occasional attempts of the patri¬ 
cians to deprive the plebeians of the rights guaranteed to them 
by solemn laws, the two orders were placed upon a complete 
footing of equality during the period of the second and third 
Samnite wars. In b. c. 312, the censor Appius Claudius 
made the famous Appian road from Eome to Capua (which 
was afterwards continued to Brundisium), and the first aque¬ 
duct which supplied the city of Eome with water. In the 
same year a calendar was set up in public for the convenience 
of the people, that they might know on what days it was lawful 
to meet in the assembly and administer justice. A constitu¬ 
tional change appears to have been made about the same time, 
in consequence of which the comitia centuriata were engrafted 
upon the comitia tributa, though the latter still continued to 
be convened separately as before. The last great change, by 
which the equalisation of the two orders was completed, was 
effected by the Ogulnian law, b. c. 300, by which the number 
of pontiffs and augurs was increased, and at the same time it 
was enacted that one-half of these priestly colleges should be 
filled with plebeians. All public offices with which political 
power was connected, were now equally divided between patri¬ 
cians and plebeians, and the differences between the two estates 


TARENTUM. 


425 


were soon so far forgotten, that the question as to whether a 
man was a patrician or a plebeian was entirely lost sight of. 
The Licinian agrarian law, however, appears to have been 
constantly violated with impunity. The distribution of the 
public land among the poor citizens, though not absolutely 
refused, was hut rarely resorted to; and the long wars carried 
on at a great distance from home continued to reduce to 
poverty many who shed their blood for their country. But 
notwithstanding these drawbacks, Rome was now enjoying, 
in some measure, the blessings of the legislation of Licinius, 
and the period of the Samnite wars may be regarded as the 
beginning of the golden age of Roman history. 

8. The peace which Rome enjoyed after the termination 
of the third Samnite war was interrupted only by fresh attacks 
of the Gauls and Etruscans, who are said to have been stirred 
up by the Tarentines. This war, beginning in b. c. 285, 
ended in the total subjugation of the Senones and Boii in b. c. 
282; but that against the Etruscans lasted for two years 
longer, when the Romans, on account of a defeat they sus¬ 
tained in southern Italy, granted them a most favourable 
peace. After this, the Etruscans made no further attempts 
to recover their independence, and seem to have enjoyed a 
high degree of prosperity under the supremacy of Rome. 

9. Tarentum, a colony of Sparta, which had been founded in 
b. c. 708, and had attained a very considerable degree of pros¬ 
perity as a commercial and manufacturing city, was looking 
with alarm upon the spread of the power of the Romans in 
southern Italy; but being unwilling itself to engage in a con¬ 
test with Rome, it stirred up the other nations of southern 
Italy to combine against their common enemy. This scheme 
succeeded so far as to induce even the Samnites to join the 
coalition in the hope of recovering their former independence. 
The first act of hostility consisted in the Lucanians besieg¬ 
ing Thurii, but C. Fabricius, after great difficulties, succeeded, 


426 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


e. c. 282, in relieving the place and gaining several victories 
over the allies. The necessity of communicating with Thurii 
by sea led the Romans to violate the treaty subsisting between 
them and the Tarentines, and ten Roman ships steered towards 
the harbour of Tarentum. The Tarentines immediately sailed 
out to attach them; and only five Roman ships escaped. 
Thurii being then attacked by the Tarentines was obliged to 
throw open its gates to them. Upon these proceedings the 
Roman senate sent an embassy to Tarentum to demand repa¬ 
ration ; but the Tarentines not only refused to do this, but 
insulted the ambassadors in a most indecent manner. War 
was thus unavoidable. The Tarentines had, in the meantime, 
been joined by the Messapians ; but as their hopes of a general 
coalition of the nations of Italy against Rome were disappointed, 
they invited Pyrrhus of Epirus to come to their assistance. 

10. Pyrrhus, the adventurous and chivalrous king of 
Epirus, with whom we have already become acquainted,* 
gladly seized the opportunity, in the hope of being able to 
establish for himself a great kingdom, consisting of Epirus, 
Magna Graecia, and Sicily. He arrived in Italy in b. c. 281, 
and immediately took possession of Tarentum, whose inhabi¬ 
tants had to submit to severe military discipline. In the year 
following, the Romans, after concluding peace with Etruria, 
sent out armies against the Samnites and Tarentines. On the 
banks of the Siris, near Heracleia, the hostile armies met, and 
Pyrrhus, partly by means of his Macedonian phalanx, and 
partly by the terror of his elephants, with which the Romans 
were unacquainted, gained a decisive victory over the Romans, 
though they fought with the most admirable valour. In con¬ 
sequence of this victory many Italians, such as the Apulians, 
Locrians, and many separate towns, openly joined Pyrrhus. 
But as he himself had sustained great losses in the battle, he 
sent his friend Cineas to Rome to offer peace. The senate, 

* P. 344, &c. 


PYRRHUS. 


427 


however, refused to listen to any proposals until the king should 
consent to quit Italy. Pyrrhus then advanced to the very neigh¬ 
bourhood of Rome, but finding that peace had been concluded 
with Etruria, he returned to Tarentum. In the year b. c. 279, 
the Roman consuls met the enemy again in the neighbourhood 
of Asculum, where Pyrrhus gained another hard-won victory. 
Notwithstanding this, however, he seems to have despaired 
of success, and in speaking of the Romans is reported to 
have said, “ with such soldiers the world would be mine,” 
while he described his own victory by saying, “ one more 
such victory, and I shall be ruined.” 

11. After these disasters the Roman senate felt inclined 
to come to some understanding with Pyrrhus; but Appius 
Claudius the Blind strenuously opposed the scheme so long 
as Pyrrhus refused to quit Italy. Pyrrhus had lost his con¬ 
fidence in his Italian allies, while the Romans filled his 
soul with admiration and respect; and well it might be so 
when he compared their conduct with that of the degenerate 
Greeks, with whom alone he had hitherto had dealings. 
Under these circumstances, he gladly availed himself of an 
invitation sent to him by the Sicilian Greeks, who hoped with 
his assistance to drive the Carthaginians out of the island. 
A truce seems to have been concluded with Rome in b. c. 
278, and Pyrrhus sailed over into Sicily. But he found his Sici¬ 
lian allies even worse than those in Italy; their faithless and 
treacherous disposition thwarted nearly all his undertakings, 
though, if they had followed and obeyed him, he would, no 
doubt, have rescued Sicily from the hands of the Carthagi¬ 
nians. After a stay of three years in the island, he returned 
to Italy at the urgent request of his Italian allies, who were 
hard pressed by the Romans. During his absence the latter 
had punished their revolted allies or subjects, and victories 
had been gained over the Lucanians, Bruttians, Tarentines, 
and Samnites. On his arrival in Italy, Pyrrhus recovered 


428 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


some of the towns which had fallen into the hands of the 
Romans. The consul M.’Curius Dentatus was encamped near 
Beneventum, and thither Pyrrhus repaired to offer battle. 
But his army, now mainly composed of effeminate and fickle 
Greeks, was no longer what it had been in his former cam¬ 
paigns. He was so completely defeated, b. c. 275, that he 
escaped with only a few horsemen to Tarentum. Finding 
that his Italian allies in other quarters were not more success¬ 
ful, and that he could not expect any reinforcements from the 
kings of Macedonia and Syria, he at once resolved to quit 
Italy, leaving small garrisons at Tarentum and Rhegium. 
Two years after his return to Epirus, he was killed at Argos 
in a battle against Antigonus Gonatas. 

12. After the departure of Pyrrhus, the Tarentines con¬ 
cluded peace with the Romans, who now resolved to crush 
the inhabitants of southern Italy for ever; and this was 
accomplished in b. c. 272, when the Samnites, Lucanians, and 
Bruttians did homage to the majesty of the great republic ; but 
Rhegium was not recovered till the year after. Rome now was 
the virtual mistress of all Italy, from the northern frontier of 
Etruria to the straits of Sicily. There was, however, one 
nation, which, though often conquered and humbled, could not 
resign itself to its fate. This was the Samnites, and in b. c. 
268 the fourth and last Samnite war broke out; but it was 
brought to a close in the very first campaign. The conquered 
nations of Italy were treated differently, according to the 
degree of hostility they had shown during the w 7 ar, and 
according to the manner in which they had succumbed to the 
Romans. All, however, had to recognise the supremacy of 
Rome, which as usual secured its dominion in the newly con¬ 
quered districts by the establishment of colonies or military 
garrisons. The vanquished nations lost the right of carrying 
on war on their own account, and of concluding treaties with 
foreign nations. The ships of the maritime cities enabled the 


CARTHAGE. 


429 


Romans, in case of need, to form a fleet against any trans¬ 
marine enemy with whom they might come in contact. At 
this time the fame of Rome's conquests had reached the ears 
of the princes in the distant East, and Ptolemy Philadelphus 
of Egypt, in b. c. 273, sent an embassy to conclude a treaty 
of friendship, which -was willingly granted. Rome had now 
become one of the states of the first rank in ancient history, 
and well would it have been for her, had circumstances 
allowed her to limit herself to Italy, and develop a system of 
free institutions over the peninsula, so as to unite the whole 
in one compact state. 


CHAPTER VI. 

CARTHAGE AND SICILY. 

1. Carthage, a colony of Tyre, on the north coast of 
Africa, is said to have been founded by Dido, a Tyrian prin¬ 
cess, about the year b. c. 814. Its inhabitants therefore 
belonged to the Phoenicians, a branch of the Semitic race. 
Carthage was not the only Phoenician colony on that coast, nor 
even the most ancient, for Utica and Tunis boasted a much 
higher antiquity ; but Carthage soon rose to great power 
and prosperity, in consequence partly of its favourable situa¬ 
tion, and partly of the decline of the commercial greatness 
of the mother city. From these and other circumstances, 
it exercised a sort of supremacy over the other Phoenician 
settlements on the same coast, though formally their inde¬ 
pendence was always recognised, and Utica in particular 
remained an independent political community down to the 
latest times. For a long period, down to the reign of 
Darius Hystaspis, the Carthaginians had to pay a tribute 



430 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


to the Libyans, that is, the natives among whom they had 
established themselves. But in the course of time they not 
only ceased to pay this tribute, hut reduced the Libyans to 
complete subjection. These were then treated by their new 
masters with cruel avarice ; they had to till the land for 
them, and furnish them with armies, for the Carthaginian 
soldiers mentioned in history are always either Libyans or 
mercenaries, the purse-proud merchants of Carthage disdaining 
to serve their country in person. In the country round Car¬ 
thage, the mixture of the Phoenician settlers with the native 
Libyans produced a race called the Libyphoenicians, who seem 
to have occupied and cultivated the rich lands about Carthage 
and the valley of the river Bagradas. The territory which 
the Carthaginian state acquired probably never reached fur¬ 
ther south than lake Triton, or further west than Hippo 
Begius. Its influence, however, was extended both in the 
west and in the east by a large number of colonies or factories, 
for they were all established for commercial purposes. Hence 
Carthage exercised her authority over the north coast of Africa, 
more or less, from the pillars of Hercules to the head of the 
great Syrtis. 

2. The character of the Carthaginians as a commercial 
nation obliged them to make themselves masters of the islands 
nearest to Africa. About the middle of the sixth century b. c., 
Malchus, a Carthaginian general who had distinguished him¬ 
self in the wars in Africa, is said to have undertaken a 
successful expedition against Sicily; but an attempt upon 
Sardinia failed, in consequence of which he was punished with 
exile. Instead of submitting to his fate, he proceeded with his 
army against Carthage, and made himself master of it. In the 
end, however, he was put to death, because he was accused 
of aiming at regal power. The work of conquest begun by 
him was continued by Mago, who also gave a better organisa 
tion to the military resources of his country. Shortly after 


CARTHAGINIANS IN SICILY. 


431 


this, the refusal to pay the customary tribute to the Libyans 
led to a war with them, in which Carthage was defeated, and 
had to purchase peace. The conquests in Sardinia and Sicily, 
however, were continued, and Sardinia became the first foreign 
province of Carthage, a condition in which that island appears 
as early as the first year of the Eoman republic. Corsica was 
likewise occupied by them at an early period, though its pos¬ 
session was disputed for a long time by the Tyrrhenians. 

3. Sicily, to which the attention of the Carthaginians 
was directed from the very first, was never entirely con¬ 
quered by them. The island was inhabited by two peoples, 
the Sicani and Siceli, and its southern and eastern coasts were 
occupied by Greek colonists, called Siceliotae, whose steady 
advance displaced several of the Phoenician settlements, 
which had existed there from early times, until the Phoe¬ 
nicians retained their footing only on the western coast. 
These Phoenician colonies were first taken possession of by 
the Carthaginians, who with this firm footing in the island, 
endeavoured to extend their empire there by fomenting dis¬ 
sensions among the Greeks until they were prepared to strike 
a great blow. Even before the invasion of Greece by the 
Persians, they had been involved in war with Gelo, the tyrant 
of Syracuse; and when they found that the Greeks of the 
mother country were fully engaged against the Persians, who 
may even have urged on the Carthaginians, they resolved to 
make a great effort against the Sicilian Greeks. An oppor¬ 
tunity easily presented itself, and the Carthaginians, to sup¬ 
port their friend Terillus, the exiled tyrant of Himera, invaded 
the island in b. c. 480 with a fleet of three thousand ships, 
and an army of three hundred thousand men, which was 
commanded by Hamilcar. But this grand armament was 
utterly defeated and its commander slain, it is said, on the 
very day on which the Greeks of the mother country fought 
the glorious battle of Salamis. The loss of this battle at once 


432 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


decided the fate of the Carthaginians in Sicily; they were 
driven hack to their ancient positions in the west of the 
island, and, for a time at least, seem to have given up all 
thoughts of extending their dominion in Sicily, for no fresh 
attempts were made until the year b. c. 410, from which time 
they continued their wars with the Sicilian Greeks, until the 
Romans interfered in the contest. 

4. Among the other foreign possessions of Carthage, we 
may notice the Balearic islands, and parts of the south and west 
coast of Spain. The first time that Carthage had any dealings 
with Rome was the year after the expulsion of the Tarquins, 
b.c. 509, when the two republics concluded a commercial 
treaty, which is preserved in Polybius, and is of extreme 
importance in determining the relations then subsisting be¬ 
tween Rome and Carthage. In a second treaty of a similar 
nature, concluded in b. c. 348, the Roman merchants were 
excluded from Corsica and Libya. During this period, the 
relations between Rome and Carthage were of an amicable 
nature, as is attested by several occurrences, and also by the 
fact, that in b. c. 306 the ancient treaty was renewed. But 
the progress made by the Romans in southern Italy aroused 
jealousy and alarm in the minds of the Carthaginians ; during 
the war against Pyrrhus, however, in b. c. 279, Carthage and 
Rome, being drawn together by the same interests, concluded 
a defensive alliance, which was directed against Pyrrhus, their 
common enemy. In consequence of this, a Carthaginian fleet 
of one hundred sail appeared at Ostia to assist the Romans, 
but it was dismissed with thanks, without being used. The 
fears entertained by Carthage in regard to Pyrrhus were 
realised by his crossing over into Sicily with the avowed 
purpose of driving the Carthaginians from it. But owing 
to the miserable conduct of his Greek allies, he was obliged 
to give up his enterprise. Throughout the war against 
Pyrrhus, both in Italy and Sicily, each of the two republics 


SYRACUSE. 


433 


fought without being assisted by the other, which probably 
arose from mistrust which they had conceived of each other 
after the conclusion of the last treaty, and the march of events 
soon brought them into violent collision. 

5. The political constitution of Carthage was strictly oli¬ 
garchical, and a few wealthy, ancient, and powerful families 
divided among themselves all the power and all the great 
offices of the state. The executive was in the hands of two 
chief magistrates called suffetes or judges, who appear to 
have been elected annually. We also hear of a senate of 
three hundred members, forming a sort of great council, out 
of which several smaller bodies or committees were chosen. 
The assembled people w T ere sometimes consulted in cases 
where the suffetes and the council could not agree; but this 
popular assembly appears otherwise to have had little power, 
the wealthy families generally having everything their own 
w 7 ay, for money seems to have been all-powerful at Carthage. 
The arts and sciences were cultivated only so far as they con¬ 
tributed to the comforts of life, or afforded the means of 
acquiring wealth. The religion of the Carthaginians was the 
same as that of the Phoenicians, and was occasionally stained 
by the offering of human sacrifices to their gods. 

6. The most powerful among the Greek colonies in Sicily 
was Syracuse, and it was chiefly this city that had from the 
first disputed the sovereignty of the island with Carthage. Civil 
dissensions induced and enabled enterprising men at an early 
period to set themselves up as tyrants of Syracuse. After 
the great victory of Gelo over the Carthaginians at Himera, 
in b. c. 480, Sicily for a time was not again invaded by the 
Carthaginians, but about a century later the elder Diony¬ 
sius, who was tyrant of Syracuse from b. c. 405 to 368, had 
to purchase peace from Carthage by giving up Agrigentum 
and other Greek towns. The Corinthian hero Timoleon 
afterwards, having delivered Syracuse from the tyranny of the 

2 F 


434 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


younger Dionysius (who ruled from b. c. 368 to 345), for a 
time checked the encroachments of the Carthaginians; hut 
under Agathocles, who had raised himself from the lowest 
rank to that of tyrant of Syracuse, b. c. 317, the hostilities 
recommenced, and continued with such varying success, that 
at one and the same time, b. c. 310, Carthage was besieged 
by the army of Agathocles, and Syracuse by that of the 
Carthaginians; for as the Carthaginians who had been in- 
vited by the enemies of Agathocles were carrying on their 
siege operations somewhat carelessly, he seized a favourable 
moment, and sailed through the midst of the enemy’s fleet 
to Carthage. After having landed on the coast, he ordered 
his fleet to be burnt, that his soldiers might have no choice 
between victory or death, and in a short time made himself, 
by his desperate courage, master of the whole territory of 
Carthage. The Carthaginian general Hamilcar in the mean¬ 
time was defeated at Syracuse, and died in captivity. Aga¬ 
thocles then, with brilliant promises, invited Ophelias, the 
governor of Cyrene, to come to his assistance, b. c. 308. But 
when he arrived with an army of twenty thousand men, the 
cunning Syracusan, alleging that the Cyrenean was meditat¬ 
ing treason, unexpectedly attacked and slew him, and then 
compelled his men to enter into his own service. In the 
height of his pride he fancied himself already master of the 
whole of northern Africa, and assumed the title of king. But 
matters soon assumed a different aspect, for being defeated in 
a battle by the Carthaginians, he secretly made his escape to 
Sicily to secure his position at Syracuse, leaving his army to 
perish in a foreign land. The soldiers, enraged at such con¬ 
duct, murdered the son of the tyrant, who had been left 
behind, and then entered the service of Carthage. By mur¬ 
ders and acts of the most wanton cruelty, Agathocles now 
endeavoured to establish himself securely at Syracuse, and 
extended his dominion over the greater part of the island; 


THE MAMERTINES. 


435 


“but in the end a slow poison was administered to him, 
which induced him to order himself to be burned. He had 
been tyrant of Syracuse from b. c. 317 to 289. 

7. After the death of this bold but unscrupulous adventurer, 
the whole island fell into a state of the wildest anarchy. 
His Campanian mercenaries, called Mamertines, on their 
return home'took forcible possession of the town of Messene 
or Messana, b. c. 281; they murdered or expelled the male 
population, and then distributed their property as well as 
their wives and children among themselves. From Messana, 
they made predatory excursions in all directions, and thereby 
produced in the island a feeling of uneasiness and insecurity, 
which the Carthaginians were not slow to turn to their own 
advantage. Pyrrhus was invited from Italy to assist the 
Sicilian Greeks against both the Carthaginians and Mamer¬ 
tines. He went across, as we have seen,* but the Sicilian 
Greeks, who probably knew that he was really aiming at 
making himself master of the island, behaved towards 
him in such a manner, that after a stay of three years he 
was glad to return to Italy. The island now fell again 
into its former state of anarchy, and the Mamertines, like a 
horde of robbers, ransacked the country, and secured their 
plunder behind the strong walls of Messana. At this time, 
b. c. 275, the Syracusans elected Hiero, a descendant of Gelo, 
as their general, and five years later he obtained the title 
of king. With a strong army he marched against Messana, 
defeated the Mamertines, and by besieging the town re¬ 
duced them to such straits, that they were obliged to look 
about for foreign assistance. Some were of opinion that they 
should throw themselves into the arms of the Carthaginians, 
who, from hatred of Hiero and the Syracusans, had already 
offered their assistance, and soon after took possession of the 
acropolis of Messana; but the majority resolved to invoke the 
aid of the Romans. 


* P 427. 


436 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE FIRST PUNIC WAR, DOWN TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE 

SECOND. 

1. At the time when the Mamertines solicited the assist¬ 
ance of Rome, scarcely six years had elapsed since the Romans 
had inflicted the severest punishment upon a body of Campa¬ 
nians who had acted at Rhegium in the same manner as the 
Mamertines had done at Messana. The Roman senate, or at 
least the better part of it, felt that common decency forbade their 
entertaining the proposal; and accordingly referred it to the 
assembly of the people, with whom the love of war and con¬ 
quest seems, at that time at least, to have stifled every other 
feeling. An alliance with the Mamertines was concluded in 
b. c. 264. As the Carthaginians were in possession of the 
citadel, Hiero, finding that he could effect nothing against the 
town, concluded peace with the Mamertines. This cut off at 
once every pretext for Roman interference ; but the opportunity 
of commencing war against the Carthaginians was too tempt¬ 
ing, and a fleet, furnished by the Greek maritime towns, and an 
army at once assembled at Rhegium. A proclamation was sent 
to Messana, to announce to the Mamertines that the Romans 
were ready to deliver them from the yoke of the Carthagi¬ 
nians. The fleet then sailed across, and the Carthaginian 
general was treacherously induced to surrender the citadel of 
Messana to the Romans. The Carthaginians demanded of the 
Romans to quit Sicily, and as this was disregarded, a fresh army, 
in conjunction with king Hiero, laid siege to Messana. The 
consul Appius Claudius, who had in the meantime come 
across with his legions, defeated Hiero before his allies could 
come to his assistance. Hiero retreated to Syracuse, and the 


FIRST PUNIC WAR. 


437 


Carthaginians, being likewise defeated, dispersed among their 
subject towns in the island. In the year after, b. c. 263, 
Hiero and his Syracusans, tired of the war, concluded peace 
with Home, and remained her most faithful allies for many 
years. 

2. In the meantime, other Eoman armies had landed in 
Sicily, and sixty-seven towns are said to have surrendered 
to them. The Carthaginians did not make their appearance 
in the field, and the conquest of the island at that time 
seemed a matter of no great difficulty. In b. c. 262, the 
Eomans besieged Agrigentum, which w r as held by a numerous 
garrison of the Carthaginians. After a siege of seven months, 
the city was compelled to surrender; the garrison escaped, 
but the place experienced all the horrors of a town conquered 
by the sword. As Carthage was mistress of the sea, the 
Eoman senate ordered a fleet to he built in all haste, after 
the model of a Carthaginian quinquereme which had been 
thrown on the coast of Bruttium. In b. c. 260, C. Duilius 
undertook the command of the fleet, and in the ensuing engage¬ 
ment with the Carthaginians off Mylae, he changed, by means 
of boarding bridges, the naval battle into a land fight. This 
was the first battle fought by the Eomans at sea, and their 
victory was so complete, that the enemy, after the loss of 
about ten thousand in killed and wounded, took to flight. The 
grateful Eomans honoured their admiral with a column, 
adorned with the beaks of the captured ships (columna rostrata ), 
and with an inscription recording the details of his victory. 
After this success, the Eomans w T ere so emboldened that they 
resolved to drive the Carthaginians from all their insular pos¬ 
sessions, and expeditions were undertaken at the same time 
against Sardinia and Corsica. The operations in Sicily were in 
the meantime carried on with less vigour, and the Carthaginians 
gained some advantages; but the ascendancy of the Eomans 
w’as restored in b. c. 258 by the consul Atilius Calatinus. 


438 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


Myttistratum, which had been besieged by the Romans for 
some time, was abandoned by the Carthaginian garrison, and 
fell into the hands of the Romans. Camarina and many 
other towns were either taken or surrendered. 

3. But notwithstanding these and other successful enter- 
prizes, one half of Sicily was still in the hands of the Car¬ 
thaginians, and the Romans had only recovered what they 
had previously lost. In b. c. 256, however, the Romans made 
immense exertions, and a large fleet of three hundred and 
thirty sail was got ready, intended to cross over into Africa 
under the command of the consuls L. Manlius and M. Atilius 
Regulus. But the fleet was met by a larger one of the Cartha¬ 
ginians near Ecnomus, and a decisive and destructive battle 
ensued, in which the Carthaginians were completely defeated, 
Offers of peace on the part of the Carthaginians w r ere rejected, 
and the Roman fleet sailed to Africa. It landed near Clupea, 
and as the place was found deserted by its inhabitants, the 
Romans made it their head quarters, and in all directions 
ravaged the country, which was cultivated like a garden and 
studded with factories and country houses of the wealthy. 
At the close of the year Manlius returned to Italy with a 
portion of the forces and a vast number of prisoners. Regu¬ 
lus, remaining behind with his diminished forces, began the 
campaign of b. c. 255 by laying siege to the town of Adis. 
But owing to the inexperience of the enemy, Regulus, it is 
said, had the satisfaction of seeing a large number of towns 
submitting to him. The Carthaginians were so much reduced 
as to be obliged to seek shelter behind the walls of their own 
city. In this distress they sent to Regulus to sue for peace ; 
but he, who might now have concluded the war in an honour¬ 
able manner, proposed such humiliating terms, that the Car¬ 
thaginians could not accept them, and resolved to perish 
sword in hand rather than submit to the insolence of their 


enemy. 


FIRST TUNIC WAR. 


439 


4. This would probably have been the result in a 
short time, had the Carthaginians not availed themselves of 
the services of the able Spartan Xanthippus, to whom they 
entrusted the supreme command of their forces. He increased 
the army, and by an improved discipline revived the spirit and 
confidence of the soldiers. When the army was sufficiently 
trained, he marched out to meet Eegulus, and in the battle 
that ensued the whole Roman army was routed and dispersed. 
Regulus himself was taken prisoner with five hundred men, and 
only two thousand escaped to Clupea. The Roman consuls 
immediately sailed to Africa with a large fleet to rescue the 
men at Clupea, who defended themselves bravely ; near cape 
Hermaeum it was attacked by the Carthaginians, but gained 
a brilliant victory over them, and continued its course to Clupea, 
where the Carthaginians were again defeated, and the two 
thousand Romans taken on board. But on its return to 
Sicily, the fleet was overtaken by a storm, during which 
most of the skips perished, all the coast from Camarina to 
Pachynus being covered with wrecks and corpses. The 
Carthaginians, emboldened by their own success and the 
reverses of their enemies, re-commenced their operations in 
Sicily and made new conquests. The news of the destruction of 
the fleet, however, acted upon the Romans only as an incen¬ 
tive to greater exertions, and in b. c. 254, a new armada of 
two hundred and twenty ships sailed to Sicily, and took 
Panormus. This conquest was followed by the surrender of 
several towns which until then had been faithful to Car¬ 
thage. As the progress of the Romans was slow, the fleet in 
b. c. 252 once more sailed to Africa, and laid waste its coast 
districts. But the dangers of the Syrtes induced the Romans 
to return, and when the fleet came within sight of cape Pali- 
nuras, a storm burst forth in which one hundred and fifty 
ships were wrecked. This second great disaster at sea dis¬ 
couraged the Romans, and it was resolved not to restore the 


440 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


fleet beyond wliat was necessary to protect Italy and convey 
troops to Sicily. 

5. During the following years the Romans nevertheless 
continued to make progress; they confined the Carthagi¬ 
nians to the western corner of the island, and in b. c. 250 
the consul Caecilius defeated them in a great battle in 
the neighbourhood of Panormus. This was the third great 
battle fought during the whole period of the war, and it 
was at the same time the last. The Carthaginians had 
now lost all the towns in Sicily with the exception of the 
fortresses of Lilybaeum and Drepana, and anxious to obtain 
peace or at least an exchange of prisoners, they are said to 
have sent Regulus, who was still in captivity, to Rome, to 
prevail on his countrymen to grant either the one or the 
other. But Regulus persuaded the Roman senate to enter 
into no negotiations and to continue the war. A new fleet of 
two hundred sail was built, and the Romans began to besiege 
Lilybaeum, which w T as very strongly fortified. The siege 
lasted for a long time, until at length the Romans con¬ 
fined themselves to blockading the place. In b. c. 249 
the fool-hardy and haughty Appius Claudius, who had gone 
to Sicily with a supplementary army, was defeated near 
Drepana both by land and by sea. This disaster of their 
enemy gave fresh courage to the Carthaginians, who followed 
up their victory with great vigour. But still more serious 
misfortunes befel the Romans, for a vast number of transports 
were destroyed during a storm, and their remaining ships of 
war were captured or sunk by the enemy. These things 
led them a second time to renounce the sea, of which the 
Carthaginians were now the undisputed masters. But their 
resources were exhausted, and their attempt to raise money by 
a loan was unsuccessful. In these circumstances, the great 
Hamilcar, the father of Hannibal, undertook the command of 
the forces in Sicily, b. c. 247. He first made some predatory 


FIRST PUNIC WAR. 


441 


descents upon the coasts of Italy, and on his return took up 
a strong position on mount Hercte, where for a period of three 
years he watched the proceedings of the Romans, and did 
them incalculable injury by his sallies. Afterwards he took 
up a similar position on mount Eryx, where he was besieged 
by the Romans, but continued to harass them as before, 
although he was surrounded by great difficulties and had only 
mercenaries for his soldiers. 

6. In this manner the war was protracted without any¬ 
thing decisive being effected by either party. The Romans at 
length, seeing that it could not be brought to a close without 
some great effort, resolved, in b. c. 242, to build another fleet. 
The funds were contributed by wealthy and patriotic citizens, 
and an armament of two hundred ships, commanded by C. 
Lutatius Catulus, was soon under sail. He first made an 
attack upon Drepana, but being unsuccessful, resolved at once 
to offer battle to the Carthaginian fleet, which contained a 
large number of transports. The victory of the Romans was 
easy and complete : sixty-three of the enemy’s ships were 
taken, one hundred and twenty were sunk, and the number of 
the slain and prisoners was immense. This great victory was 
gained in b. c. 241 off the iEgatian islands, and Eryx soon 
after fell into the hands of the Romans. The Carthaginians 
now sued for peace, which was granted on condition of their 
evacuating Sicily and the islands between it and Carthage, 
abstaining from war against Hiero and his allies, restoring the 
Roman prisoners without ransom, and paying two thousand 
three hundred talents in ten yearly instalments. 

7. The first Punic war, which had lasted twenty-three 
years, and had been carried on with incredible efforts and losses 
on both sides, was now terminated, and in Sicily Rome made 
her first foreign conquest. Sicily, as a country out of Italy, on 
coming into the hands of the Romans received a constitution 
different from that of the conquered countries of Italy—it 


442 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


became a province, that is, a country governed by a Roman 
praetor or proconsul, who was sent out every year with 
supreme civil and military power, and was assisted by a 
quaestor or treasurer. The revenues derived from a province 
by the Roman republic were of various kinds, such as taxes 
consisting of a tithe of all the produce of the soil, and the 
rent of the public or domain land. These revenues fvecti- 
galiaj were not levied by officers of the government, but were 
farmed by wealthy individuals (publicani) or companies of 
them. All the towns of a province, moreover, were not in 
the same relation to Rome, their condition generally depend¬ 
ing on the manner in which they had behaved during the 
war preceding the conquest. In Sicily, for example, the little 
kingdom of Hiero and several other places remained perfectly 
free and independent. It was a maxim with the Romans that 
provincials should serve Rome only with money, and not 
with soldiers, whence they were not allowed to enlist in the 
Roman armies. It is a remarkable fact, that during the 
long period of the first war with Carthage, the Italian nations 
remained quiet, and did not attempt to shake off the yoke 
of Rome—-a proof of the moderation with which she treated 
them. 

8. When the Carthaginians evacuated Sicily and their 
mercenaries returned to Africa, the government was unable to 
give them the pay that was due to them. They accordingly 
rose in arms against their employers, b. c. 241, and were urged 
on by Italian deserters who were afraid of being delivered 
up to the Romans. This war between Carthage and her 
mercenaries was carried on with the utmost cruelty by both 
parties, and Carthage itself was brought to the brink of 
destruction, the whole of the surrounding country being at 
times in the hands of its enemies, for the insurgents were joined 
by the Libyans and even by other Phoenician colonies on the 
coast. The great Hamilcar at length, after the war had 


ILLYRIAN WAR. 


443 


raged upwards of three years, succeeded in putting an end to 
it, b. c. 238. The fact that Carthage was enabled to crush 
the rebellious mercenaries, was partly owing to the generous 
conduct of the Romans, who not only refused to aid the rebels, 
but protected the transports destined for Carthage. During 
this African war, the mercenaries in Sardinia likewise revolted; 
but the natives drove them from the island. The mercena¬ 
ries then threw themselves into the arms of the Romans, who 
gladly availed themselves of the opportunity of seizing the 
island, in b. c. 238. When Carthage remonstrated with them 
for this act of aggression, the Romans treated them as if they 
were the offenders, and not only took possession of Sardinia 
and Corsica, but demanded of Carthage the additional sum of 
twelve hundred talents. The African republic being in too 
exhausted a condition to offer any resistance, was obliged to 
yield; but its indignation and revenge were treasured up for 
a more convenient time; and Carthage, under the guidance 
of Hamilcar, at once began to make preparations to indemnify 
herself in another quarter for what she had lost. 

9. The Romans had indeed gained possession of the 
islands of Sardinia and Corsica, but they had to carry on a 
long and tedious war with the natives, wdio were less patient 
of the Roman yoke than they had been of the Carthagi¬ 
nian. About the same time the Romans were involved in 
an equally tedious war with the Ligurians and Boians, and 
while these wars were still going on, another struggle was 
commenced in b. c. 229 against the semi-barbarous pirates 
of Illyricum, who were then governed by a queen Teuta, 
and did great injury to the maritime cities of Greece. The 
barbarians w r ere easily conquered, and the Greek towns wdiich 
had formerly been plundered by the Illyrians, such as Corcyra, 
Epidamnus (Dyrrhachium), Apollonia, placed themselves under 
the protection of Rome. In this manner the Romans gained 
a footing on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, and a certain 


444 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


influence upon tlie affairs of Greece ; that influence, however, 
was beneficial, for the Illyrians were humbled and obliged to 
give up their piracy. At the same time Corinth and Athens 
conferred certain marks of honourable distinction upon the 
Romans. 

10. But all these wars were trifling compared with that 
which now burst upon the Romans. In b. c. 229, C. Fla- 
minius, by an agrarian law, had distributed the lands on 
the north-east of the Apennines, which had been taken from 
the Gauls. For some years the Boians had been strengthen¬ 
ing themselves by alliances with other Celtic tribes in the 
north of Italy, and even beyond the Alps. In b. c. 226 swarms 
of Celts came across the Alps, and as their formidable hosts 
moved southward, the Romans were seized with the greatest 
alarm. The Gauls, devastating everything by fire and 
sword, advanced as far as Clusium in Etruria. There the 
Roman army met them, determined to rescue Italy from 
their devastations. At first the Romans were nearly sur¬ 
rounded and annihilated, but in the neighbourhood of Telamon, 
on the coast of Etruria, they gained a decisive victory, the 
Gauls losing forty thousand in killed and ten thousand in 
prisoners. This memorable battle was fought in b. c. 225, and 
the year after the Romans compelled the Boians to submit, 
and for the first time crossed the river Po, where in b. c. 223 
the consul C. Flaminius gained a great victory over the 
Insubrians. In the year following, the war against the Gauls 
was brought to a close by M. Claudius Marcellus in the 
battle of Clastidium, where he slew the Gallic chief Virido- 
marus with his own hand. In the peace which was then 
concluded, the Gauls recognised the supremacy of Rome, 
which thus became the mistress of the wide plains of Lom¬ 
bardy, known by the ancient name of Gallia Cisalpina; 
and she secured these conquests by the establishment of the 
colonies of Cremona and Placentia. 


CARTHAGINIANS IN SPAIN. 


445 


11. In the meantime tlie Illyrians, and especially the 
Illyrian prince, Demetrius of Pharos, had renewed their 
piratical practices; but they were effectually put an end to, 
in b. c. 219, by the consul L. iEmilius Paulus, who subdued 
the whole of Illyricum; but Demetrius escaped to the court 
of Philip of Macedonia, whose attention had no doubt already 
been attracted by the progress made by the Romans on the 
east of the Adriatic. 

12. After the loss of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, the 
Carthaginians, guided by the wise counsels of Hamilcar, had 
endeavoured to indemnify themselves by making conquests 
and establishing a new empire in Spain. That country was 
inhabited by Iberians and Celts, who lived partly in separate 
districts, and partly mixed together under the name of Celti- 
berians. In some of the coast districts the Phoenicians and 
Greeks had already formed settlements. By a wise modera¬ 
tion and kind treatment Hamilcar succeeded in attaching 
the natives to himself, though he neglected no precaution to 
insure their permanent fidelity. In b. c. 229 he fell in a 
bloody battle against the natives, leaving the command to 
his son-in-law Hasdrubal, who successfully pursued the same 
policy as his predecessor, and founded the town of Hew 
Carthage (Carthagena). The Romans, somewhat alarmed 
at the progress made by the Carthaginians in Spain, con¬ 
cluded a treaty with Hasdrubal, in which it was stipulated 
that they should not carry their conquests beyond the river 
Iberus. In b. c. 221 Hasdrubal was assassinated and suc¬ 
ceeded by the great Hannibal, the son of Hamilcar, who 
had accompanied his father to Spain at the age of nine years, 
and had grown up in the camp under the eyes of his illus¬ 
trious father, and in the midst of the greatest hardships. 

13. Hannibal is one of the greatest generals of all ages 
and countries, and ought not to be judged of by the partial and 
prejudiced account which Livy gives of him. Immediately 


446 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


after his accession he engaged in war with some tribes, and 
succeeded in conquering Spain as far as the Iberus, except the 
town of Saguntum, which is said to have been allied with the 
Romans. Availing himself of some dispute between it and 
a neighbouring tribe, he at once proceeded in b. c. 219 to 
lay siege to the town. Roman ambassadors in vain called on 
him to abstain from hostilities ; he referred them to the senate 
at Carthage. Q. Fabius, the spokesman of the embassy, met 
with no better success at Carthage, for although the aristocratic 
party, headed by Hanno, was thoroughly opposed to a war 
w T ith Rome, the friends of Hannibal and the popular party 
refused to take their victorious general to account, or to recall 
him. Fabius, at length, making a fold of his toga, said, u Here 
I bring you peace and war; take whichever you please.” 
When the answer was, u Give us whichever you please,” he, 
unfolding his toga, replied, “ Well, then, I offer you war.” 
War was thus declared. The inhabitants of Saguntum main¬ 
tained themselves with the greatest fortitude against the 
besiegers, but after eight months of a most heroic defence, 
the town was taken and reduced to a heap of ruins. The 
inhabitants were partly buried under the ruins of their houses, 
and partly killed themselves by rushing into the fire which 
they had kindled in the market-place to destroy their remaining 
property; the survivors were put to the sword. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

THE SECOND PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST AND SECOND MACEDONIAN 
WARS, AND THE WAR AGAINST ANTIOCHUS. 

1. At the time when war was declared against Carthage, the 
Romans were still engaged in Illyricum, and the war against 
the Gauls had only just been brought to a close, whence we 



HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS. 


447 


cannot be much surprised at finding that they did not at once 
act with the energy and quickness which they usually mani¬ 
fested on such occasions. Hannibal, on the other hand, 
assembling his troops at New Carthage, intrusted the supreme 
command in Spain to his brother Hasdrubal, while he himself, 
in the beginning of the summer of b. c. 218, crossed the Iberus 
with an army of ninety thousand foot, twelve thousand horse, 
and thirty-seven elephants; but before crossing the Pyrenees, 
he allowed all those who were unwilling to accompany him on 
his gigantic expedition, to return. By this means his forces 
were reduced to fifty thousand foot, and nine thousand horse. 
On his passage through Gaul he met with no opposition until 
he reached the river Rhone, the passage of which he had to 
force against hosts of Gauls drawn up against him on the 
eastern bank. He then began his ever memorable march 
across the Alps, by the Little St. Bernard, during which he 
and his army had to struggle with indescribable difficulties. 
When at length he arrived on the southern side of the Alps in 
the valley of Aosta, his forces were reduced to twenty thousand 
foot and six thousand horse; but though worn out, they were 
all soldiers on whom the great general could place full reliance. 
The passage of the Alps had been effected in fifteen days, and 
his arrival in Italy was hailed by the Gauls, who implored his 
protection against Rome. 

2. When the Romans received intelligence of Hannibal’s 
design to cross the Alps, they sent the consul P. Cornelius 
Scipio with an army and fleet to Gaul, and his colleague Sem- 
pronius Longus with another army to Sicily. Scipio arrived 
in Gaul when Hannibal had already crossed the Rhone. With¬ 
out, therefore, effecting anything of consequence, he slowly 
returned to Italy, and did not arrive on the banks of the Po 
until Hannibal had already descended from the Alps. The 
hostile armies met first on the banks of the Ticinus, and after¬ 
wards on those of the Trebia, and in each of these engage- 


448 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


ments the Romans were defeated, and Scipio himself received 
a severe wound in that on the Ticinus. Hannibal spent the 
winter in Lombardy, and in the beginning of b. c. 217 he 
with incredible difficulty crossed the Apennines into Etruria. 
On the banks of lake Trasimenus, the consul C. Flaminius, 
anxious to defend the road to Rome, met the Carthaginian 
army, and on a foggy morning a fearful battle was fought, in 
which no less than fifteen thousand Romans perished. Flami¬ 
nius himself was among the slain, and the rest escaped to an 
Etruscan village. Another detachment which had been sent to 
assist the consul was likewise cut to pieces or taken prisoners. 
Hannibal's policy from the first was by kind treatment of the 
Italians to win their attachment, and induce them to throw 
off the yoke of Rome; but, as we shall see hereafter, he had 
miscalculated: the Italian allies, and more especially the 
Roman and Latin colonies throughout Italy, remained faith¬ 
ful. This he experienced immediately after the battle of lake 
Trasimenus, for w r hen he attacked Spoletium, the town offered 
a brave defence, and Hannibal, abandoning the place, marched 
along the eastern coast of Italy, through the countries inhabited 
by Sabellian tribes, towards Apulia, in the hope of arousing 
the nations of southern Italy against their rulers. 

3. The news of the battle of lake Trasimenus had thrown 
Rome into the greatest consternation. Q. Fabius Maximus, 
honourably surnamed the Slack (Cunctator), was immediately 
appointed dictator, for it was expected that Hannibal would 
march straightway against Rome. But finding that he had 
taken a different road, Fabius followed him at every step, but 
cautiously avoided giving battle, though he endeavoured to gain 
every possible advantage when opportunities offered. Near 
Casilinum, the prudence of Fabius, and a mistake on the part of 
Hannibal’s guide, placed the latter in so difficult a position, that 
he extricated himself only by a stratagem, causing bundles of 
wood to be fastened to the horns of two thousand oxen, which 


BATTLE OF CANNAE. 


449 


were then driven in the night with the faggots blazing 
towards the Romans. The latter, terrified by the sight, quitted 
their favourable position, and thereby enabled the enemy to 
escape. Hannibal spent the winter in Apulia, and was greatly 
disappointed at finding that he was not yet joined by any of 
the Italian nations. The Romans began to be dissatisfied with 
the excessive caution of Fabius, and for the year b. c. 216, 
appointed C. Teientius Yarro, a man of a directly opposite 
character, to the consulship, along with L. iEmilius Paulus. 
They were expected to put an end to the war at one blow; 
they entered Apulia with an army of eighty thousand foot 
and six thousand horse, and pitched their camp near the little 
town of Cannae. The terrible defeat which the Romans sus¬ 
tained there at once showed them how wise had been the 
policy of Fabius. Forty-seven thousand Romans covered the 
field of battle; the consul iEmilius Paulus and eighty sena¬ 
tors were among the slain. Yarro escaped with only a few 
horsemen to Yenusia. This day of Cannae was marked in 
the Roman calendar as a day equally disastrous as that on 
which they had been defeated by the Gauls on the Allia. 

4. But although Rome was humbled, her spirit was not 
broken; and proposals for ransoming the prisoners, or con¬ 
cluding a peace, were indignantly rejected. Hannibal, after 
his victory, moved towards Capua, and at once reaped the 
fruits of his success in being joined by a number of Italians. 
Capua, next to Rome the greatest and wealthiest city of Italy, 
likewise openly declared for him, though its relation to Rome 
had been extremely favourable. He took up his winter quar¬ 
ters among his new allies at Capua, and his stay there forms 
the turning point in his career, which had hitherto been so 
glorious, and that too notwithstanding the numerous allies 
he had gained, and the reinforcements he had received from 
Carthage. The Romans made incredible efforts, and even 
enlisted a body of eight thousand slaves. In b. c. 215, Hanni- 


450 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


bal sustained considerable loss in an attack upon the fortified 
camp of M. Claudius Marcellus at Nola, and another great 
advantage was gained by Tib. Sempronius Gracchus near 
Beneventum. The confidence of the Romans was revived by 
these successes, and they now laid siege to Capua, which was 
forsaken by Hannibal, who lingered in Apulia and Lucania. 
At length, however, he advanced to the relief of Capua, but 
as the Romans declined a battle, he proceeded towards Rome, 
and pitched his camp near its very gates. A detachment from 
the besieging army at Capua was recalled, and battle was 
offered to Hannibal, but he, satisfied with having ravaged 
the country, returned to Capua which was still blockaded, 
and thence to Rhegium. 

5. In the year of the battle of Cannae, Hiero, the faithful 
ally of the Romans, had died; and his successor Hierony¬ 
mus, ceasing to fear Rome after her defeat, negotiated with 
Hannibal, who gladly accepted the proposal of an alliance. 
But Hieronymus was murdered by his own subjects, and two 
usurpers, who assumed the supreme power, treated Rome in 
the same way as their predecessor. The consequence was, that 
in b. c. 214, an army under M. Claudius Marcellus sailed across 
to Sicily, and laid siege to Syracuse, which siege continued 
until b. c. 212, when the Romans became masters of the 
place by treachery. The Syracusans, assisted by the mathe¬ 
matical and mechanical skill of Archimedes, defended them¬ 
selves bravely, and for this they had to pay dearly in the cruel 
treatment they experienced at the hands of their conquerors. 
The greatness and splendour of Syracuse were destroyed for 
ever, and the great mathematician was murdered while pur¬ 
suing his scientific studies. All Sicily now again fell into the 
hands of the Romans. Hannibal tried to make up for this 
loss by the conquest of Tarentum and some other places in 
southern Italy. But it was all of no avail; the genius of 
Rome was in the ascendant, and in the year- after, b. c. 211, 


THE ROMANS IN SPAIN. 


451 


Capua was taken. Its inhabitants were treated with true 
Roman cruelty, and twenty-seven senators made away with 
themselves, while others killed their wives and children to 
save them from inhuman treatment by the Romans. Two 
years after this, b. c. 209, Tarentum was recovered by 
Fabius Maximus. This and the cruel treatment inflicted on 
Syracuse and Capua intimidated most of the Greek towns in 
Italy so much, that they abandoned the cause of Hannibal. 
The Carthaginian now set his only hope on the succours which 
he expected from his brother Hasdrubal in Spain. 

6. At the very beginning of the war in b. c. 218, Cn. 
Cornelius Scipio had been sent to Spain to oppose Hasdrubal, 
and had soon after been joined by his brother Publius. The 
two Scipios remained in Spain for a number of years, ever 
harassing and checking the Carthaginians. They not only 
prevented Hasdrubal from sending reinforcements to Hanni¬ 
bal, but even defeated him in several battles. At the same 
time they formed connections with an African chief Syphax, 
who then attacked Carthage. But in the year b. c. 212, the 
two Scipios were slain in battle within thirty days of each 
other, and their armies were nearly annihilated. The Romans 
lost all their possessions in Spain on the south-east of the 
Iberus, and Hasdrubal made preparations to join his brother 
in Italy. At Rome, no one was bold enough to undertake 
the command of a new army in Spain, till young P. Cor¬ 
nelius Scipio, the son of P. Cornelius Scipio who had lately 
been slain in Spain, offered to do so, though he was only 
twenty-four years old. This young man, in every respect 
a most remarkable person, wms scarcely inferior as a general 
to Hannibal himself, and afterwards gained the imperishable 
glory of putting an end to the war. Immediately on his 
arrival in Spain, b. c. 211, things took a different turn, 
and in his second campaign, he took New Carthage, the 
most important possession of the Carthaginians. By mild- 


452 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


ness and kindness lie secured the attachment of many of the 
Spanish chiefs, and his authority and influence became so 
great that he quite eclipsed Hasdrubal, who was defeated by 
him in b.c. 209, in a great battle near Baecula. But notwith¬ 
standing this discomfiture, Hasdrubal ventured at length to 
carry out his scheme of joining Hannibal in Italy. In b. c. 
207, he arrived on the southern side of the Alps, and after 
some delay in Lombardy, marched through eastern Italy to 
join his brother in Apulia, but he was opposed by the consul 
C. Claudius Nero. Hasdrubal, while attempting to cross the 
river Metaurus in Umbria, was attacked by the Romans by 
night. He himself was killed, and his army, unacquainted 
with the locality, was entirely cut to pieces before Hannibal 
even knew of his arrival, for all letters had been intercepted. 
A Roman cut off the head of Hasdrubal, and on the return of 
the army to Apulia, flung it into the camp of Hannibal. This 
was the first intelligence which Hannibal received of his 
brother’s misfortune, and in it he read his own fate. 

7. After these occurrences, Hannibal confined himself to 
a defensive attitude in the country of the Bruttians, who 
still remained faithful to him. In this isolated and de¬ 
serted condition, without assistance from home, and without 
allies in Italy, he displayed the greatest heroism; he main¬ 
tained himself for several years, and whoever attacked him 
had to pay dearly for it. After the departure of Hasdrubal 
from Spain, the Carthaginians still had two armies there; 
but their commanders were not able to cope with Scipio, 
who gradually drove them out of Spain, and made himself 
master of the whole of the southern part of the peninsula. 
Scipio remained in Spain for several years, partly engaged 
in chastising the rebellious tribes, and partly in organising 
the administration of the conquered country. He also re¬ 
newed the connection with Syphax, and concluded a treaty 
with him. After this, he went to Rome, where, notwith- 


EATTLE OF ZAMA. 


453 


standing his youth, he was elected consul for the year b. c. 
205. He had, however, many powerful enemies, and tL* 
cautious senate did not approve of his proposal to make a 
descent upon Africa. Sicily was assigned to him as his 
province, and he obtained permission to sail to Africa, if 
he thought it advantageous for the republic. The means 
placed at his disposal were very scanty, but the enthusiasm 
of the people in all Italy was so great, that he was plentifully 
provided with everything by their voluntary contributions. 
He established himself at Syracuse, and took Locri in southern 
Italy. 

8. When all preparations had been made, Scipio in b. c. 
204 crossed over into Africa. Syphax, from jealousy of the 
Numidian king Masinissa, had joined the Carthaginians, while 
Masinissa went over to the Romans. With his assistance 
Scipio, not far from Utica, set fire to the camp of Syphax and 
the Carthaginians, which consisted of tents made of straw and 
dry branches ; and great havoc was made among the enemies. 
Syphax fled to his own kingdom, but was pursued and taken 
prisoner. His wife Sophonisbe, who had caused the jealousy 
between him and Masinissa, was now given to the latter; 
but afterwards when Scipio, who did not trust her, demanded 
her surrender, Masinissa poisoned her. The last hope of 
Carthage now rested upon Hannibal, and a message was forth¬ 
with sent to summon him to return to Carthage. He obeyed 
the call without hesitation, but with a heavy heart, b. c. 
202. Soon after his arrival he had an interview with Scipio, 
and both commanders were willing to come to terms; but 
the Carthaginian people, elated by the mere presence of 
their great general, resolved once more to try the fortune of 
arms. The battle of Zama, in b. c. 202, decided between the 
two nations. The Carthaginians fought with the courage of 
despair; but the day was lost, and the greater part of their 
army cut to pieces. Hannibal himself escaped with only a 


454 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


few companions, and advised his countrymen to submit to 
necessity and accept the terms of peace offered by Scipio. 
Carthage was obliged to surrender all Roman deserters and 
prisoners without ransom, to give up its whole fleet with the 
exception of ten ships; to promise to abstain from war with 
foreign states without the sanction of Rome, to indemnify 
Masinissa for his losses, and to pay the enormous sum of ten 
thousand talents by fifty yearly instalments. This peace 
was ratified at Rome in b. c. 201; Scipio then returned to 
Rome in triumph, and was henceforth distinguished by the 
honourable surname of Africanus. 

9. After the peace Hannibal showed that he was not less 
great as a statesman and politician than as a general; for 
he did all he could to heal up the wounds of his country by 
wise reforms in the administration. But not only did the 
Romans exert their influence to undermine his authority, but 
his own countrymen began to distrust him, so that the greatest 
man of his age was at last obliged to quit his country as an 
exile, b. c. 196, and seek protection at the court of an eastern 
despot, Antiochus the Great, king of Syria. His hatred of the 
Romans, however, remained as unquenchable as his love of his 
own country. The Roman republic, notwithstanding the fear¬ 
ful losses it had sustained, and notwithstanding the enormous 
devastations which Italy had experienced during the long war, 
came forth from the struggle more powerful than ever. She 
had conquered Spain, and Carthage and Numidia were virtually 
in a state of dependence on her. Their non-Italian possessions 
now obliged the Romans to keep a fleet; their name was 
known far and wide, and foreign states and princes eagerly 
sought their friendship and alliance. 

10. During the time of the second Punic war, Macedonia was 
governed by the young and talented, but faithless and licentious 
king Philip. His fears of the Romans had been already 
excited by the influence they had acquired in the east of the 


SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR. 


455 


Adriatic after the Illyrian wars, and these feelings were 
fostered by Demetrius of Pharos. After the battle of Cannae, 
when the power of Rome seemed to be broken, he concluded a 
treaty with Hannibal, in which all the countries on the east 
of the Adriatic were secured to Philip, while Carthage was to 
rule over the west. But the document containing the treaty fell 
into the hands of the Romans, who at once adopted energetic 
measures to prevent the Macedonian king from sending succour 
to Hannibal. Philip, on the other hand, instead of trying to 
support his great ally, spent his time in useless struggles with 
the friends of the Romans in Asia Minor and Greece. A petty 
war was thus carried on for a period of ten years, from b.c. 215 
to 205, during which neither party gained any great advantage. 
A peace was then concluded, in which neither the Romans nor 
the Macedonians had any honest intentions, for Rome having 
to make every effort against the Carthaginians could not afford 
at the same time to continue the war against Macedonia with 
vigour, and wished to postpone more active measures until the 
close of the Hannibalian war. The second war against Mace¬ 
donia broke out in b.c. 200, because Philip had ravaged Attica, 
which was allied with Rome. This war was at first carried 
on with little energy on the part of the Romans, and Philip, 
supported by the Achaean league and other Greek states, was 
successful for a time, but when T. Quinctius Flamininus in b.c. 
198 undertook the command, and with extraordinary boldness 
attacked the enemy in his own country, things assumed a 
different aspect. In the battle of Cynoscephalae the Romans 
gained a complete victory over Philip, who was now obliged to 
conclude a peace, in which he recognised the independence of 
Greece, gave up a great part of his fleet, paid a large sum of 
money, and gave hostages as security for his future conduct. 
This peace was concluded in b. c. 197, and the year after 
Flamininus solemnly proclaimed the liberty and independence 
of Greece at the Isthmian games. 


456 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


11 . The rejoicing of the Greeks knew no hounds, hut 
it soon became evident that they had only made a change 
of masters, the Romans having stepped into the place of 
the Macedonians. The enthusiasm for their liberators gra¬ 
dually subsided, and the rude iEtolians, being hostile to the 
Romans, partly because they did not consider themselves 
sufficiently rewarded for their services, and partly because 
they hated Nabis, the tyrant of Sparta, who had been too 
gently treated by the Romans, stirred up Antiochus the 
Great to a war against Rome. In this attempt they were 
supported by Hannibal, who was then staying at the king’s 
court. The king himself, moreover, had been offended by 
the Romans, who demanded that he should restore the Greek 
states in Asia Minor to independence, and renounce his pos¬ 
sessions in Thrace. Accordingly, in b. c. 192, on the invi¬ 
tation of the iEtolians, Antiochus crossed over into Europe; 
but instead of following the advice of Hannibal, to ally him¬ 
self with Philip of Macedonia and attack the Romans in 
Italy, he wasted his time in festivities and amusements in 
Euboea, and offended Philip, while the Romans rapidly 
advanced into Thessaly. In b. c. 191 Antiochus and the 
iEtolians were met at Thermopylae by the Romans under 
M.’Acilius Glabrio, and were put to flight without any great 
struggle. The iEtolians now sued for and obtained peace, 
for the Romans were desirous to continue the war against 
Antiochus in Asia, whither he had fled after his defeat. 

12. In b. c. 190, a Roman army, under the command of 
0. Laelius and L. Cornelius Scipio (who was accompanied 
by his brother P. Scipio Africanus), crossed over into Asia 
with an army of twenty thousand men. As the haughty king 
still refused to accept the terms offered by the Romans, a 
great battle was fought near Magnesia, at the foot of mount 
Sipylus, in which the hosts of the Syrians were unable to 
resist the Roman legions. After the loss of this battle 


DEATH OF HANNIBAL. 


457 


Antiochus fled to Syria and sued for peace, which was granted 
to him on condition that he should renounce all his posses¬ 
sions in Asia west of mount Taurus, give up all his ships of 
war, and pay a large sum of money. He was, moreover, 
required not to interfere in the affairs of the allies of Rome, 
and to deliver up Hannibal. This peace was not ratified 
at Rome until b. c. 188. The countries in Asia ceded by 
the Syrian king (including Galatia, which was conquered 
soon after), were, for the present, distributed among the allies 
of Rome, such as the Rhodians and Eumenes of Pergamus, 
for the time had not yet come when it was thought desirable 
to constitute them as a Roman province. Hannibal finding 
that his life was not safe in Syria, sought and found pro¬ 
tection with Prusias, king of Bithynia; but when this prince 
also was unable to protect him against the restless perse¬ 
cution of the Romans, the unhappy Carthaginian poisoned 
himself b. c. 183. His conqueror Scipio Africanus died about 
the same time ; he too spent the last years of his life in a 
kind of exile, into which he had been driven by the envy 
and jealousy of his enemies, though he had in some measure 
to blame his own overbearing haughtiness. 

13. While the Romans were thus engaged in making 
vast conquests in the East, the peace had been disturbed in 
the north of Italy by the Ligurians, Insubrians, and Boians, 
who commenced hostilities in b. c. 200, and continued them 
until b. c. 181. In the course of this war, during which 
many a bloody battle w r as fought, these nations were com¬ 
pelled to submit to Rome, and the Boians seem to have been 
completely extirpated. In Spain, too, the Romans were 
obliged to maintain their dominion sword in hand, for, 
after the departure of Scipio, the cruelty and faithlessness 
of the Romans often drove the Spaniards into rebellion and 
insurrection. A great war broke out there in b. c. 181, and 
continued to rage until b. c. 179, when Tib. Sempronius 


453 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


Gracchus, the father of the two celebrated tribunes, concluded 
a fair and honourable peace, which was long and gratefully 
remembered by the Spaniards. 


CHAPTER IX. 

FROM THE THIRD WAR AGAINST MACEDONIA DOWN TO THE 

TIME OF THE GRACCHI. 

1. Though Philip of Macedonia had assisted the Romans 
in the war against Antiochus, still he cherished an implacable 
hatred of them, and when in b. c. 179 he died, he bequeathed 
the same feelings to his successor Perseus, who, being an ille¬ 
gitimate son, had by intrigues and calumnies induced his 
father to put to death his lawful son Demetrius. No sooner had 
Perseus ascended the throne than he began to form new 
alliances, and make preparations for a conflict with Rome, 
for which his father had left him ample means. But the un¬ 
willingness he felt to part with his treasures, and his ill-judged 
measures, after some momentary advantages, brought about 
his downfall. When defeated by iEmilius Paulus at Pydna 
in b. c. 168, he fell into the hands of the Romans, and, 
together with his children, treasures, and friends, was led in 
triumph through the streets of Rome. Macedonia was now 
divided into four independent districts, with republican insti¬ 
tutions, and made tributary to Rome.* By this dismember¬ 
ment the unity, and with it the strength of the country was 
broken. 

2. Greece, too, distracted as it was by treachery, intrigues, 
and party feuds, was hastening towards its final dissolution. 
Shortly after the battle of Pydna, one thousand of the most 

* Compare p. 358, foil. 



SUBJUGATION OF GREECE. 


459 


illustrious Acliaeans, charged with having secretly supported 
Perseus, were sent to Italy to be tried. Among them was 
the great historian Polybius. But instead of being allowed 
to account for their conduct, they were kept as hostages and 
prisoners. After seventeen years, b. c. 151, when death had 
reduced their number to three hundred, they were permitted to 
return to their country. A similar charge was brought against 
the wealthy and powerful island of Rhodes, which, in conse¬ 
quence, lost its Asiatic possessions, and was obliged to recognise 
the supremacy of Rome. About nineteen years after the battle 
of Pydna, b. c. 149, Andriscus,' a runaway slave, came for¬ 
ward, and, pretending to be a son of the late king Perseus, 
claimed the throne of Macedonia. Many Macedonians flocked 
around his standard, being encouraged by the outbreak of a 
third war against Carthage, in which it was hoped that Rome 
would be defeated. But the praetor Q. Caecilius Metellus 
crushed the pretender and his followers, in b. c. 148, in a 
battle near Pydna. Some years after this, Macedonia was 
constituted as a Roman province. 

3. Metellus was still engaged in Macedonia when the 
Romans called upon the Achaeans to dismiss Lacedaemon and 
several other cities from their confederacy; the Achaeans 
assembled at Corinth treated the Roman ambassadors, who 
communicated this demand, with insult and violence. This 
act led to a war* and in b. c. 147, Metellus, after set¬ 
tling the affairs of Macedonia, advanced southward, and 
defeated the Achaeans in two battles, at Thermopylae, 
and at Scarpheia in Locris. But he was obliged to leave 
the honour of bringing the war to a close to the rude L. 
Mummius, who, after a victory at Leucopetra on the Isth¬ 
mus, took and destroyed the wealthy city of Corinth b. c. 
146, and then traversed Greece, but especially Peloponnesus, 
spreading desolation wherever he appeared. The inhabitants 

* Compare p. 361, foil. 


4G0 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


of Corinth and other places were partly put to the sword, 
and partly sold as slaves ; the treasures of art were ruthlessly 
destroyed, or carried away to Rome, to adorn the palaces 
and villas of the nobles. Greece, however, does not appear 
to have been made a Roman province, under the name of 
Achaia, till many years later. Under the oppressive adminis¬ 
tration of the Romans, the prosperity of the once flourishing 
little states gradually died away, and scarcely a trace was 
left of the ancient patriotism and love of liberty. The Spar¬ 
tans continued to indulge their warlike propensities by serv¬ 
ing as mercenaries in the armies of foreign powers, while the 
Athenians continued to be valued by the Romans as scholars, 
artists, poets, actors, and dancers, who contributed to the 
entertainment and amusement of their haughty conquerors, 
though they rarely succeeded in gaining their esteem and 
respect. As a seat of learning, however, Athens continued 
to maintain its rank as one of the principal places in the 
ancient world, to which men, fond of ease and letters, flocked 
from all parts, as to a great university. 

4. The peace which Carthage had concluded with Rome 
in b. c. 201, lasted for more than half a century, during which 
period the Carthaginians, by industry, commerce, and agricul¬ 
ture, to some extent recovered their former prosperity. But 
this prosperity only gave fresh fuel to the national hatred of 
the Romans, and excited their jealousy and fear. Masinissa, 
the neighbour of Carthage, who enjoyed the favour of the 
Romans, and seems even to have been instigated by them, 
neglected no opportunity of harassing and annoying the 
reviving state. The Roman Cato, who was infatuated by a 
blind hatred of Carthage, partly perhaps because the Cartha¬ 
ginians had rejected his proffered mediation between them and 
Masinissa, and partly from a real, though unfounded fear of 
the growing power of Carthage, urged in every speech he 
made in the senate the necessity of crushing the African 


THE THIRD PUNIC WAR. 


461 


republic. Masinissa, who well knew the feelings of the 
party at Rome hostile to Carthage, and was sure not only 
of impunity, but of support and protection, increased his 
own dominion at the expense of Carthage, and by constant 
disputes and vexations drove the Carthaginians to the neces- 
sity of defending their rights by force of arms, because Rome, 
when appealed to, either delayed pronouncing sentence, or 
decided in favour of the aggressor. The Romans, gladly 
seizing the opportunity, charged the Carthaginians with 
having broken the peace. The people of Carthage implored 
their mercy ; and to assure them that they had no hostile 
intentions, they not only sent three hundred of their noblest 
citizens as hostages to Rome, but delivered up all their 
Bhips and arms. This happened in b. c. 149 ; and when 
all this was done, the Romans further demanded that Car¬ 
thage should be razed to the ground, and that the inhabitants 
should build a new town for themselves at a distance of many 
miles from the sea. The treacherous and insolent nature of 
this demand drove the people to despair and madness ; they 
resolved to perish under the ruins of their own houses rather 
than yield to such insolence. A bold patriotic spirit seized all 
ranks and all ages, and the women cheerfully sacrificed all 
their finery upon the altar of their country. The whole city 
was at once changed into a military camp, temples were 
transformed into manufactories of arms, and nothing was 
spared that could serve to deliver the country from its im¬ 
pending doom. Such a spirit was. too much even for the 
Roman legions, accustomed as they were to conquest and vic¬ 
tory. Several times they were repulsed, and thrown into such 
a perilous condition, that at last the Romans found it necessary 
to appoint P. Cornelius Scipio iEmilianus, the son of iEmilius 
Paulus, who had been adopted into the family of the Scipios, 
to the consulship for b. c. 147. He had not yet attained the 
age to qualify him for the consulship, but he had already 


462 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


given proofs of the highest military talent. Even he, how 
ever, was not able to take the city, which offered a most 
desperate resistance, until the inhabitants were reduced by 
the most fearful famine, and even then he had to conquer 
every inch of ground, during a murderous fight in the streets 
of Carthage, which lasted for six days, b. c. 146. The fury 
of the enraged soldiers, and a conflagration which continued 
without interruption for seventeen days, changed the once 
proud mistress of the Mediterranean into a heap of ruins. 
A small number of determined Carthaginians, who had man¬ 
fully defended the temple of iEsculapius, the highest point in 
the city, when they saw that all was hopeless, set fire to the 
temple, and found their death in the flames. Fifty thousand 
inhabitants, who escaped from the carnage, are said to have 
been sold into slavery by Scipio, who, from this conquest, 
like his great namesake, obtained the surname Africanus. 
The territory of Carthage was changed into the Roman pro¬ 
vince of Africa, and a curse was pronounced upon the site of the 
ancient city, that it might never be rebuilt. 

5. Rome had now become virtually the mistress of all the 
countries round the basin of the Mediterranean, for the few 
states, such as Numidia, Egypt, and Pergamus, which still 
enjoyed a nominal independence, were destined at no distant 
period to lose even this appearance of freedom, for Rome had 
become conscious that she must rule the world. This des¬ 
tiny of Rome, however, was not the effect of any settled plan 
of her rulers or statesmen; it was rather the result of cir¬ 
cumstances, and she was forced, often very reluctantly, for 
the sake of her own peace and safety, to continue her conquests 
at an inconvenient distance. We have seen that newly con¬ 
quered countries were sometimes not even retained, but given 
to those who had assisted Rome in conquering them. But great 
as was the prosperity abroad, at home the cancer of poverty 
was eating deeply into the vital parts of the state, while the 


I 


INTERNAL CONDITION OF ROME. 463 

upper classes indulged in every kind of foreign luxury. The 
political constitution had been finally fixed long ago, and the 
difference between patricians and plebeians was no longer 
thought of. But although not recognised by law, a new aris¬ 
tocracy ( nobiles , optimates ) had arisen which based its claims 
upon wealth, and more especially upon family honours; that 
is, those who could boast of a long list of ancestors who had 
been invested with the great offices of the republic looked 
upon themselves as being entitled to the same honours, 
whereas those who had no such ancestors to refer to were 
virtually almost excluded, and stigmatised by the name of 
obscure persons ( obscuri ); and if any such person succeeded 
in raising himself to the highest dignity, he was styled an 
upstart (novus homo). Henceforth, therefore, the struggle 
in the republic was between the rich and the poor, between 
those who were in possession of all the material and political 
powers, and those who possessed neither, but were anxious 
to secure, at least, the means of living. 

6. Ever since the Romans had formed connections 
with the Greeks in southern Italy, and still more after 
the Illyrian and Macedonian wars, the intellectual superi¬ 
ority of the Greeks had manifested its influence in all the 
departments of public and private life. Greek gods and Greek 
forms of worship were adopted at a very early period, and 
threw many parts of the ancient national or Italian religion so 
much into the shade, that they became mere matters of anti¬ 
quarian curiosity, whose meaning and import were forgotten. 
Greek education and an acquaintance with Greek arts and 
literature were regarded as necessary by the best among the 
Roman families, and no one can say to what this hellenlzing 
spirit might have led, had it not been checked by a party 
which still clung tenaciously to the ancient and simple ways 
of their ancestors. This party was headed by M. Porcius 
Cato, who in his censorship manfully struggled against the 


464 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


prevailing fashion, and made his name proverbial as Cato 
censorius. The foreign influence which he combated shewed 
itself not only in education and in literature, which was at 
first little more than translation and adaptation from the 
Greek, but extended over the whole life of the Romans, and 
was seen in the luxuries of dress and of the table, in the 
affectation of polished manners, and in sensual enjoyments; 
for along with the riches of the East the conquerors also im¬ 
ported its follies and vices. In b. c. 155 Cato carried a 
decree ordering the three Greek philosophers, Carneades, 
Diogenes, and Critolaus, who had been sent to Rome as ambas¬ 
sadors from Athens, and attracted crowds of young men to 
their lectures, to quit the city. Long before this time it 
had been found necessary to prohibit the celebration of the 
Bacchic festivals ( Bacchanalia ), which had been introduced 
from southern Italy and formed a focus for every vice and 
licentiousness. Cato endeavoured to counteract the evil 
tendency not only by legal enactments, but by literary pro¬ 
ductions, such as his works on agriculture, the foundation of 
Rome’s greatness, and on the Italian nations, whose history 
formed as strong a contrast to that of Rome in his time, as 
his own frugal and simple mode of life, and his old-fashioned 
cheerfulness in his social circles, did to the lavish extravagance 
and fashionable refinement of his opponents. But still the 
very example of Cato, who himself commenced the study of 
Greek in his old age, shows that obstinate partiality for what 
is old and established must ultimately give w T ay to the onward 
movement which nothing can completely stop. 

7. The wealth carried to Italy after the Punic, Mace¬ 
donian, and Syrian wars was immense, and exercised the 
greatest influence upon the manners and morality of the 
Romans. The families from whom the highest magistrates 
and generals were taken, accumulated such enormous riches, 
as to be able to live more like princes than plain citizens of 


INTERNAL CONDITION OF ROME. 


465 


the republic. Their humble dwellings were exchanged for 
stately villas surrounded by parks and filled with the most 
costly furniture and the most precious works of art, of which 
they had stripped the conquered countries and cities. In the 
acquisition of these treasures they were not very scrupulous 
as to the means employed, whence the constant complaints 
about bribery, avarice, and oppression in the provinces. The 
ladies especially, who possessed much more influence at Eome 
than in Greece, indulged in extravagant luxuries and dress, 
against which the laws proved powerless. The immorality 
and degeneracy of the wealthy were but too soon communicated 
to the great body of the people. The ancient and frugal mode 
of life, as well as the laborious pursuit of agriculture, was 
more and more abandoned. The young men preferred mili¬ 
tary service abroad, where their toil was rewarded witn 
wealth and enjoyment, to the peaceful employments at home; 
the soldiers always liked best to serve under a commander 
who was willing to allow them the greatest license, and as 
his elevation depended upon their votes in the assembly, 
the men aspiring to high offices neglected no means of 
gaining popularity, however immoral or illegal they might be. 
This hunting after popularity was, and remained, one of the 
most fatal disorders of the Eoman republic. The wealthy 
vied with one another to win the favour of the multitude 
by splendid games and exhibitions, of which the Eomans 
were always passionately fond; and by this means the people 
were demoralised and corrupted. Their sense of honour 
was stifled, and with it the source of virtue dried up. The 
public games exhibited at Eome for the amusement of 
the multitude show that the influence of Greek culture had 
affected only the surface of the great body of the Eomans; 
for while in Greece the national games were a stimulus to 
great and noble efforts in war and in peace, the gladiatorial 
and animal fights of the Eoman circus produced and could 

2 H 


466 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


produce no other effect than that of fostering a delight in 
cruelty and bloodshed, and of familiarising the people with 
scenes that ought to have filled them with disgust and horror. 

8. Reckless extravagance was indulged in not only by 
the wealthy but also by the poorer classes, so that Rome has 
not unfitly been called “ an abyss which no treasures were 
able to fill up.” The natural consequence was poverty and 
distress, with all the evils that generally accompany them. 
Usurers filled their coffers from the misery of thousands, who, 
notwithstanding their wretched condition, looked upon them¬ 
selves as the lords of the earth, and treated with contempt 
those unfortunate foreigners whom war had reduced to slavery. 
A most lucrative trade was at this time carried on in slaves, 
and some of the best among the Romans did not disdain to 
enrich themselves by the odious traffic. The rude and half¬ 
savage natives of Sardinia and Corsica (probably Ligurians 
mixed with Iberians), who were employed for coarse labour, 
were sold at a very low price, while the more educated and 
refined Greeks and Asiatics, who served as secretaries, readers, 
teachers, tutors, and domestic servants, often fetched very 
high prices in the market. But notwithstanding all these 
symptoms of internal decay, Rome’s outward prosperity was 
ever increasing, and the great public works, highroads, canals, 
and aqueducts, are sufficient attestations of the lofty spirit and 
persevering energy of this wonderful people. 

9. The optimates, amassing their wealth chiefly in the 
provinces, were ever eager for fresh wars and conquests. 
When appointed governors of foreign provinces under the 
title of proconsul or praetor, they generally looked more to 
their own interests than to the welfare of the provincials. 
As the Roman government did not itself levy the taxes in 
the provinces, but left this duty to wealthy capitalists ( publi - 
cani} 1 who paid to the state a stipulated sum, and then obtained 
the right either themselves or through their agents to collect 


WAR AGAINST VIRIATHUS. 


467 


the taxes and duties, a wide field for extortion and cruel 
oppression was left open, and the most enormous sums were 
carried to Italy from the provinces. What w r as left by the 
publicani was speedily absorbed by hungry usurers and 
money-lenders, who usually inundated a country, as soon as 
it became a Roman province; hence a few years were often 
sufficient to ruin the prosperity of a whole country. There 
existed, it is true, laws against extortion (de repetundis) in 
the provinces, and provincials might seek redress from the 
Roman senate ; but as the judges were taken from the sena¬ 
tors, who either had been guilty of the same crime, or were 
looking forward to similar opportunities of enriching them¬ 
selves, the accused generally escaped unpunished, or w r ere 
sentenced, for the sake of appearance, to pay a small fine. 

10. Sometimes the misrule of the governors and the extor¬ 
tion of the publicani drove the provincials into despair and 
rebellion. The first instances of this kind occurred in Lusi¬ 
tania in Spain, where Ser. Sulpicius Gralba, after having suf¬ 
fered a severe defeat, by his avarice and cruelty called forth a 
general insurrection. Galba treacherously causing the people 
to appear before him without arms, ordered them all to be 
massacred. Viriathus, a common Lusitanian, but a brave 
and patriotic soldier, who escaped on that fearful day, rallied 
round him as many of his countrymen as he could, and for a 
period of eight years, from b. c. 148 to 140, carried on a war 
which was most disastrous to the Romans. In b. c. 141 a 
peace was concluded with him, in which the Romans were 
obliged to recognise him as their friend and ally; but regard¬ 
ing this as an intolerable humiliation, they renewed the war 
in the year following, and got rid of their enemy only by 
Hiring assassins, who murdered him in his own tent. The 
Lusitanians continued the war for a few years longer, but 
were in the end obliged to submit, b. c. 137. 

11. Even before this war was brought to a close, another 


468 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


had broken out with the Celtiberians in b. c. 143. Their 
capital was Numantia, a city renowned in the history of 
Spain for the brave and noble resistance it offered to the 
valour of the Roman legions. It was situated on a lofty emi¬ 
nence on the upper Durius, and held out against the besieging 
and blockading armies for a period of five years. In b. c. 137 
theNumantines put the consul C. Hostilius Mancinus in a situa¬ 
tion so perilous, that he was obliged to conclude a peace with 
them, in which their independence was recognised. But the 
senate again resorted to the miserable expedient which had been 
adopted after the defeat of Caudium: Mancinus was to be 
delivered up to the Numantines, and the war to be resumed 
with renewed vigour. The brave mountaineers remained undis¬ 
mayed, and for P. Cornelius Scipio, the destroyer of Carthage, 
was reserved the unenviable task of torturing to death the heroic 
citizens of Numantia. When he received the command of 
the Roman army he conducted the siege with the utmost 
vigour. The besieged suffered from the most frightful famine, 
and for some time fed upon the corpses of their fellow citizens. 
At last, in b. c. 133, they were obliged to surrender, and 
having first killed their wives and children, they threw open 
the gates. Their number was very small, and in conse¬ 
quence of their long sufferings, their features hardly resembled 
those of human beings. Scipio then destroyed the mountain 
fortress, the ruins of which, not far from Soria, are still a 
monument of the noble struggle for freedom and independ¬ 
ence. Spain now became a Roman province, and being 
exhausted, remained quiet for more than thirty years, but 
fresh acts of oppression afterwards gave rise to new wars. 

12. In the same year in which Numantia fell, Attalus, 
king of Pergamus, died, and in his will bequeathed his king¬ 
dom to the Roman people, probably in compliance with an 
express demand of the senate. Soon afterwards, b. c. 131,. 
Aristonicus, a relation of the late king, came forward to- 


THE OPTIMATES. 


469 


claim the kingdom as his lawful inheritance. Finding many 
supporters, he placed himself at the head of a general insur¬ 
rection of the Lydians and Ionians. The war, in which the 
Romans sustained serious losses, was continued into the year 
b. c. 130, when M. Perperna brought it to a close. Aris- 
tonicus was taken prisoner and carried to Eome in triumph. 
The kingdom of Pergamus, with the exception of Phrygia, 
which was given to Mithridates V., king of Pontus, as a 
reward for his assistance, was now constituted as a Roman 
province under the name of Asia. 


CHAPTER X. 

FROM THE TIME OF THE GRACCHI DOWN TO THE FIRST WAR 

AGAINST MITHRIDATES. 

1. The new aristocracy of the optimates, which had gradually 
been formed after the two ancient estates of the patricians and 
plebeians had been placed upon a footing of political equality, 
not only endeavoured to exclude all novi homines from the 
great offices of the republic, but also maintained themselves, 
like the patricians of old, in the exclusive possession of the 
ager publicus , which in fact they regarded as their private 
property, neither heeding the limitation fixed by the Licinian 
law, nor particularly scrupulous about paying the rent to the 
treasury. The number of these optimates was comparatively 
small, but they held in their hands the administration of the 
republic and the provinces, and they alone earned glory, 
wealth, and triumphs by foreign wars, while the great body of 



470 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


the people were oppressed by the constant necessity of serving 
in the armies, and were suffering from want, for the booty 
taken in war generally passed into the hands of the generals 
and other optimates. Nay, it would appear that in some 
instances the wealthy landed proprietor by fraud or violence 
deprived his weaker neighbour of his small patrimony, and 
reduced him and his family to beggary. In this manner the 
optimates amassed enormous riches, while multitudes were 
pining in abject poverty. The class of small landed proprietors, 
who once had constituted the strength of the republic, had 
almost entirely disappeared, and instead of them there had 
arisen a body of citizens without property, spending their life in 
idleness, and ready to sell their political birthright for miserable 
bribes. Their number had, moreover, been increased by the 
admission of strangers and freedmen to the franchise. So long 
as the wealthy landed proprietors had cultivated their princely 
estates ( latifundio ) by free peasants or clients, no alarming 
symptoms showed themselves, because the impoverished hus¬ 
bandman might support himself and his family at least by 
working as an agricultural labourer; but when the avarice 
of the nobles led them to employ hordes of slaves on their 
estates instead of free labourers, who were now abandoned as 
homeless wanderers in their own country, a few of the nobler 
natures among the Romans began to feel uneasy, and were 
prompted by a feeling of humanity to devise a remedy for 
the ever increasing evil. 

2. Formerly the people in the comitia had voted openly, 
but in b. c. 139 the Gabinian law introduced the vote by 
ballot in the election of magistrates, and two years later the 
same practice was extended by the Cassian law to the popular 
courts of law. By these measures the influence of the opti¬ 
mates over the poor became only more pernicious; the multi¬ 
tude became more venal, and the nobles had the best oppor¬ 
tunities, by bribing or purchasing votes, and by manumitting 


TIB. SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS. 


471 


their slaves, to carry the elections according to their own 
wishes and interests. These evils might have been remedied 
by creating an independent middle class, either by distributing 
the public land, of which the state possessed a vast amount, 
among the poor, or by conferring the full franchise upon 
the Latins. The latter of these remedies was unpalatable 
to the pride and ambition of the ruling people, and the 
former to the avarice and selfishness of the Roman nobility. 
The fears of the humane and truly patriotic citizens must 
have been increased by what was just happening in Sicily, 
where a war of the slaves, commanded by Eunus, one of 
their number, broke out in b. c. 134 against the free popu¬ 
lation, and was carried on with the horrors common in wars 
of slaves who break their chains. It raged for more than 
two years, and upwards of twenty thousand slaves are said 
to have been killed. 

3. Occurrences like these, which showed to what disas¬ 
trous consequences the present system, if persevered in, might 
ultimately lead, emboldened the noble and patriotic tribune, 
Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, a son of Cornelia, the daughter 
of the elder Scipio Africanus, in b. c. 1 33, to come forward 
as the friend and champion of the poor. He proposed the 
re-enactment of the Licinian law, which had, in fact, never 
been repealed, but had in the course of time become a dead 
letter. No one, accordingly, was to be allowed to possess 
more than five hundred jugera of public land; the surplus 
was to be taken from the actual possessors, and distributed 
in small lots as full property among poor citizens. A com¬ 
mission of three men was to be appointed to superintend the 
measurement and distribution; and at the same time it was 
proposed that the property which had just been bequeathed 
to the Roman people by king Attalus of Pergamus, should be 
distributed among the poor to enable them to purchase stock 
and the necessary agricultural implements. The optimates, 


472 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


headed by the violent and stubborn Scipio Nasica, opposed 
the bill with all their might, and by intrigues induced 
another tribune, Octavius, to put his veto on the proposal of 
his colleague, in which scheme they succeeded the more easily, 
because Octavius, too, possessed more of the public land than 
the law allowed. Gracchus left no means untried to induce 
his colleague to give up his opposition; but all was in vain; 
avarice and the instigations of the optimates prevailed. Grac¬ 
chus thus found himself under the necessity of either giving 
up his noble and patriotic scheme, or depriving his colleague 
of his powers. He adopted the latter course, and in the 
assembly of the people, which was numerously attended by 
men from the country, he proposed the deposition of Octavius. 
This plan succeeded ; Octavius was stripped of his office, and 
a new tribune being elected in his stead, the bill of Gracchus 
w’as passed. This procedure, which was contrary to esta¬ 
blished usage, gave his opponents a handle against him, and 
they now endeavoured to persuade the people that Gracchus 
aimed at subverting the constitution, and even spread the 
malicious report that his object was to make himself king ot 
Rome. The people in their ignorance allowed themselves to 
be misguided, and notwithstanding the purity of his inten¬ 
tions, Gracchus found that his popularity was decreasing. 
When at the approaching election of the tribunes for the next 
year he again presented himself as a candidate, the opti¬ 
mates and their followers created a tumult, in which the 
illustrious tribune was slain, together with three hundred of 
his friends and followers. These scenes of bloodshed were 
followed by every kind of persecution, in which the nobles 
took bloody revenge for the fears they bad endured of 
being deprived of their illegal possessions. During the night 
after the murder, Caius, the brother of Tiberius Gracchus, 
wished to have the body of his brother removed and decently 
buried, but was prevented; and before daybreak, it was 


C. SEMPRONIUS GRACCHUS. 


473 


thrown into the Tiber, together with those of all the others 
who had fallen during the tumult. 

4. The aristocracy had gained a complete triumph, and 
made bloody use of it; but the tribunes also had become aware 
of their power, and the years which now follow are marked 
by several popular enactments. The triumvirs were to 
superintend the carrying into effect of the agrarian law, but 
the optimates continued to obstruct their working in every 
possible way, and contrived, by appointments abroad, to re¬ 
move from the city those men whose spirit and energy they 
had most reason to dread. But all their machinations did not 
prevent C. Sempronius Gracchus, the younger and more 
talented brother of Tiberius Gracchus, after the lapse of ten 
years, from offering himself for the tribuneship. He was 
elected to the office for the year b. c. 123, in the course of 
which he carried a great many laws, all intended to improve 
the condition of the poor and to weaken the power of the 
senate and the nobles. One of them was a re-enactment of 
his brother’s agrarian law. The popularity he thus acquired 
secured his re-election for the next year. He commenced his 
operations of the second year by an enactment, transferring the 
trial of political offences from the courts composed of senators 
to courts consisting of equites or wealthy capitalists. By this 
means, the offenders, generally senators, ceased to be tried by 
their peers, but became subject to courts composed of quite a 
different class of men, who seemed less likely to screen offenders 
or make justice a purchaseable article. This law remained in 
force until the time of Sulla. Gracchus’ great eloquence and 
noble nature created for him a numerous and powerful party of 
supporters among the poorer classes, whose momentary wants 
he endeavoured to relieve by employing them in making public 
roads and constructing public buildings. His labours proceeded 
as satisfactorily as could be expected; but when, urged on by his 
somewhat vehement friend, Fulvius Flaccus, he proposed that 


474 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


the Roman franchise should he conferred upon the Italian allies, 
or at least, upon the Latins and Latin colonies, the optimates 
were seized with the greatest alarm, and resorted to an 
expedient which had been tried and found useful before. M. 
Livius Drusus, one of the tribunes, was gained over by the 
aristocrats and prevailed upon to outbid Gracchus in popular 
measures. He accordingly promised the people other and 
greater advantages, and by this means undermined the popu¬ 
larity of Gracchus ; the aristocracy succeeded in preventing his 
re-election to the tribuneship for the third year, and even made 
preparations for a proposal to abolish all his enactments. As 
Gracchus was now divested of the sacred character of tribune, 
his opponents were less scrupulous. During the disturbances 
which arose, the consul L. Opimius, a personal enemy of 
Gracchus, was invested with dictatorial power, to save the 
republic, as the cry was, from impending ruin. A battle was 
fought in the streets of Rome, and Gracchus and Fulvius 
Flaccus with their followers were overpowered. Flaccus and 
three thousand of his party were slain, and their bodies thrown 
into the Tiber. Gracchus escaped across the river into the 
grove of the Furies, where, at his own request, he was killed 
by a faithful slave. Exile, execution, and imprisonment then 
completed the work which had been left undone by the sword, 
and the aristocratic party, when satiated with blood, erected 
a temple to Concord! But peace was not restored, and the 
triumph achieved by the optimates was not of long duration: 
the measure of their misdeeds was not yet full. 

5. The exertions and sacrifices made by the noble brothers 
were productive of no permanent good to the republic, and things 
went on much in the same way as they had done before. The 
optimates disgraced the victory they had won by insatiable 
avarice, acts of injustice, and the most barefaced bribery. But 
events were taking place destined soon to bring the evil to a 
head. The audacious and crafty Jugurtha, the adopted son of 


THE JUGURTHINE WAR. 


475 


Masinissa, king of Numidia, knew tlie venal character of the 
Romans, and relying on their moral depravity, and feeling 
sure of impunity, murdered the two sons of Masinissa and 
took possession of their dominions. The Romans during these 
proceedings acted the part of mere lookers on, or allowed 
themselves by large bribes to be induced to connive at the 
crimes of Jugurtha. At length, however, the tribune C. Mem- 
mius gave vent to his indignation at the conduct of the nobles, 
and by exposing their conduct induced the senate in b.c. Ill to 
declare war against the Numidian usurper. An army was accord¬ 
ingly sent to Africa, but the commanders soon found out that 
they could derive greater personal advantages from negotiation 
and treating with Jugurtha, than from vigorously carrying out 
the decree of the senate. When these things became known at 
Rome, the honest and talented Memmius again came forward, 
and fearlessly exposed the shameless conduct of the Roman 
commanders in Africa. Jugurtha was summoned to Rome, but 
even now he might have escaped with impunity, had he not 
had the audacity to murder young Massiva, a grandson of 
Masinissa. The war was indeed continued, but it was con¬ 
ducted in a careless and slovenly manner, until at length, in 
b. c. 109, the senate endeavoured to allay the threatening 
storm, by giving the command against Jugurtha to the 
honest and brave, but proud Q. Caecilius Metellus. He 
managed the war for a period of two years in a highly creditable 
manner, and restored the honour of the Roman arms. But the 
people of Rome had lost confidence in their noble commanders. 

6. When Metellus went to Africa, he took with him C. 
Marius as one of his lieutenants. This man was of humble 
parentage, but of unbounded ambition, and full of hatred of 
the aristocracy, as well as of their polished manners and 
learning, of which it was his boast to be profoundly ignorant. 
Even before he went to Africa, he had attracted public atten¬ 
tion by the vigorous manner in which he tried to secure the 


4T6 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


rights of the poorer classes against the encroachments of the 
optimates. His personal valour, and his talent as a military 
commander, were also generally known and acknowledged, 
and it was to him that the people of Rome seem to have been 
looking as the man who alone could and would bring the war 
against Jugurtha to a close. In b. c. 108 he formed the design 
of offering himself as a candidate for the consulship, and the 
insolent manner in which the proud Metellus received the 
announcement only fired his ambition; he therefore proceeded to 
Rome, where the popular party received him with the greatest 
enthusiasm. He obtained the consulship for b. c. 107, and 
the commission to proceed to Africa, as the successor of Me¬ 
tellus, and bring the war against Jugurtha to a termination. 
Marius, in forming his army, enlisted large numbers of the 
poorer classes and even freedmen, and having trained them 
well, his skill, bravery, and straight-forwardness, were more 
than a match for the crafty Numidian. He was eminently 
successful, and reduced the enemy to such straits, that 
he was obliged to apply to Bocckus, his father-in-law, king 
of Mauritania, in the hope of stirring him up to a war against 
Rome. But L. Cornelius Sulla, a young noble, who was 
serving in the army of Marius as quaestor, induced Bocchus 
treacherously to deliver up his own son-in-law. Jugurtha 
was accordingly surrendered to Sulla, who forthwith delivered 
him up to the consul Marius. The war was thus terminated 
in b. c. 106, and Jugurtha, after adorning the triumph of 
Marius, died of starvation in a Roman dungeon. 

7. Nothing could have been more fortunate for Rome, 
than this timely conclusion of the Numidian war, for Italy 
was threatened with an invasion of barbarians more terrible 
than any it had yet experienced. The Cimbri, a Celtic host, 
who had been pressed forward towards the west by commo¬ 
tions among the Sarmatians in the east, appeared in Noricum 
on the banks of the Danube, where they were joined by an 


CIMBRI AND TEUTONES. 


477 


equally numerous host of Teutones or Germans. This had 
happened in b. c. 113. The Cimbri, wandering about with 
their women and children, sought a new home in -the western 
parts of Europe, and promised to commit no act of hostility 
against either the Eomans or their friends. They kept their 
promise; but being nevertheless treacherously attacked in 
the neighbourhood of Noreia, they completely defeated the 
Roman army, b. c. 113. After this, instead of invading 
Italy, they threw themselves into Gaul, being joined in 
Helvetia by other tribes. Gaul was fearfully ravaged, and 
scarcely any part of the country was able to resist the invaders. 
In the course of four years, five consular armies were defeated 
by the barbarians on the Rhone and on the banks of the lake 
of Geneva. All Italy trembled as in the days of Hannibal; 
no one was anxious to obtain the consulship, and Marius was 
the only man to whom all looked with confidence. He had not 
yet returned from Numidia, but in his absence he was elected 
consul for the year b. c. 104, and the same dignity was con¬ 
ferred upon him in the four following years. Fortunately 
the Cimbri, after their victories over the Romans, invaded 
Spain, which they ravaged in the same manner as Gaul, but 
in b. c. 102 they returned to Gaul, where in the meantime 
the Teutones also had arrived. 

8. Ever since his second consulship, Marius had exerted 
himself to train and discipline his army for the coming 
struggle, by accustoming the men to every kind of hardship. 
When the Cimbri arrived, Marius was with his army in 
Gaul, and fought a decisive battle in b. c. 102 near Aquae 
Sextiae (Aix), against the Teutones. After this defeat, the 
barbarians retreated to their waggons, but being unable to 
maintain themselves the whole body was annihilated. Half 
the danger was now overcome; but the Cimbri were at the 
same time descending from the Raetian Alps into Italy, 
and the Roman army which was to oppose them under Q. 


478 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


Lutatius Catulus, was obliged to retreat before the invaders 
to the southern bank of the river Po. Marius, on being 
informed of this, hastened to the relief of his colleague 
and in a place called the Campi Raudii, near Vercellae, he 
defeated in b. c. 101 the Cimbri as completely as he had 
the year before defeated the Teutones. Only a very small 
band escaped, who seem to have settled on the banks of the 
Meuse, where they were afterwards found by Julius Caesar. 
Marius was the deliverer of Italy and the pride of the popular 
party ; his sixth consulship, in b. c. 100, was the reward 
of his glorious victories, and under his auspices the demo¬ 
cratic or popular party gained the upper hand. 

9. The optimates, apprehensive of the growing power of 
their opponents, and of losing what they considered their 
rights, united under the leadership of Sulla, who was as ambi¬ 
tious as Marius, but combined in his person all the good and all 
the bad qualities of the Roman aristocracy. His connection 
with Marius in the Numidian war, and his success, had only 
increased the hatred of the popular leader against him. Marius, 
who had become giddy by his victories, acted in many respects 
as if he were the master of the republic. The infamous tribune 
L. Appuleius Saturninus, whose proceedings were seconded 
by Marius, lorded it over the popular assembly by a band 
of followers, and endeavoured to increase the number of his own 
friends and party by a series of legislative enactments which 
were carried by force and violence. One of these enactments 
ordained that the lands conquered by Marius in Gaul and Africa 
should be distributed among his veterans. The high-minded Q. 
Caecilius Metellus, who refused to be a party to the revolu¬ 
tionary schemes of Saturninus, was sent into exile; and Satur¬ 
ninus succeeded in raising himself twice to the tribuneship by 
causing his competitors to be murdered in broad daylight. 
At length, wishing to gain the consulship for Servilius Glaucia, 
one of his associates, he caused his competitor, the noble C. 


SATURNINUS—LTYIUS DRUSUS. 


479 


Memmius, to be murdered, b. c. 100. This and many other atro¬ 
cious acts at length induced Marius to renounce his connection 
with Saturninus. Even his own party began to detest the 
monster, and when Marius called upon his fellow-citizens, they 
readily took up arms in the defence of the republic. Saturninus, 
Glaucia, and their followers, withdrew to the Capitol, where 
they were besieged; but want of water soon compelled them 
to surrender, and nearly all of them were put to death by 
command of Marius. After these horrible scenes, Marius 
himself for a time withdrew from public life, and the party 
strife seemed to subside. But the causes of discontent and 
disease were not removed, and every one capable of discerning 
the signs of the times must have looked forward with terror 
to the explosion which could not be far distant. 

10. Sulla neglected no opportunity of wounding the 
already exasperated feelings of Marius. He was anxious to 
show that the honour of having brought the Numidian war 
to a close belonged to him alone, and that Marius had no 
share in it. But this and similar things were of minor impor¬ 
tance. Far weightier matters were agitating the minds of 
thinking men. The reform introduced by Gracchus in the 
composition of the courts of justice had proved a complete 
failure, as the equites were found to be as accessible to bribes 
as the senators had been; the number of the poor and 
helpless was increasing every year in a most alarming 
ratio, which enabled the wealthy, by their money, to rule 
the state ; and, lastly, the Latins and Italian allies of 
Borne had for some time been demanding the full franchise. 
It required a man of unusual boldness to grapple with these 
questions, but it was impossible to devise means satisfactory 
to all parties. At length, in b. c. 91, the eloquent and talented 
tribune M. Livius Drusus undertook the task. He first 
endeavoured to remedy the scandalous mal-administration of 
justice by a law in which the judicial power was divided 


480 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


between the senators and equites. He contemplated checking 
the growth of pauperism by agrarian laws, the establish¬ 
ment of colonies, and regular distributions of corn among the 
poorer classes. His third measure demanded the franchise for 
all the Italians, but before this could be carried, Drusus was 
murdered in his own house, and the Italians, seeing from this 
occurrence that it was hopeless to endeavour to gain their 
rights in a constitutional and peaceful way, took up arms to 
conquer by force what had been so obstinately refused to their 
petitions and demands. This was the beginning of the Social 
or Marsic war, which broke out in b. c. 90, and blazed forth 
at once in all parts of Italy. 

11. In the earliest times Rome had from time to time 
conferred the franchise upon the neighbouring districts, as 
they were successively incorporated with the state. The 
number of such districts, or tribes as they were called, had 
been increased to thirty-five about the end of the first Punic 
war, the city of Rome forming four tribes, and the surround¬ 
ing country thirty-one ; but after that time the franchise was 
not extended. The rights enjoyed by the Latins and Latin 
colonies approached nearest the Roman franchise, and it was 
evident that in any political reform they must be the first to 
obtain it. The Italian allies had for a long time demanded 
to be emancipated and placed on a footing of equality with 
the Romans; but whenever the question had been mooted, 
they were treated with haughtiness and contempt. They 
had set their last hope upon the efforts of Livius Drusus, and 
this time they were prepared to gain their point either by per¬ 
suasion or by force. All the Sabellian nations, with the Mar- 
sians and Samnites at their head, had formed themselves into 
a confederacy, and, after the murder of Drusus, renounced 
their obedience to Rome. Their object was to establish an 
Italian republic governed by two consuls, and with the town 
of Corfinium, henceforth to be called Italica, as its capital. 


THE SOCfAL WAR. 


481 


Amiies well trained in arms, and a well supplied common fund, 
6eemed to promise the best results. Fortunately for Rome, 
the Latins all over Italy, with the Etruscans and Umbrians, 
had not joined the insurgents, and the Romans, in order to 
prevent such a contingency, at once conferred the franchise 
upon the Latins by a law proposed by the consul L. Julius 
Caesar, b.c. 90. The war was carried on simultaneously in 
several parts of Italy, and many a bloody battle was fought. 
In b. c. 88, when the Etruscans and Umbrians were on the 
point of joining the Italians, Rome wisely propitiated them 
also by granting them the franchise. By these concessions 
the strength and still more the hopes of the allies were broken, 
and as Rome was threatened by a war with Mithridates in Asia, 
and was anxious to restore the peace in Italy, she promised 
the franchise to all those Italians who should lay down their 
arms. This measure produced the desired effect*, and the 
Social War, in which Italy had lost three hundred thousand 
of her sons, terminated in b. c. 88. But the Samnites still 
held out with the same vigour and determination which they 
had displayed in their former conflicts with Rome, and after¬ 
wards, during the civil war between Marius and Sulla, they 
joined the former. The new citizens thus admitted to the 
franchise, however, were not put on a complete footing of 
equality with the old ones, and this arrangement contained 
of course the seeds of future discord and disturbances. 


482 


CHAPTER XI. 

FROM THE FIRST WAR AGAINST MITHRIDATES, DOWN TO THE 

DEATH OF SULLA. 

1. The kingdom of Pontus, in the north-east of Asia 
Minor, had originally been a province subject to Persia, but 
in b. c. 3G3 Ariobarzanes, satrap of Phrygia, made himself 
independent, and constituted Pontus as a separate kingdom. 
Under his successor, Mithridates, who reigned from b. c. 337 
to 302, the kingdom became consolidated and powerful. Mith¬ 
ridates V. (b. c. 156-120) assisted the Romans in their war 
against Aristonicus, for which they rewarded him by adding 
Phrygia to his kingdom. But after his death, when his son 
and succe'ssor Mithridates VI. was still very young, they took 
Phrygia from him. The young king was at the time unable 
to resent this aggression, but strengthened himself and ex¬ 
tended his kingdom as far as he could without coming into 
contact with the Romans. Mithridates was a man of great 
courage and enterprise, and possessed of all the advantages 
that Greek culture and civilisation could afford. When 
he was sufficiently prepared, he did not hesitate to interfere 
in the affairs of Cappadocia and Bithynia, and when opposed 
by the Romans, his well disciplined troops had no difficulty 
in defeating them. He then advanced westward, and his 
arrival was hailed by the lightheaded Greeks, who looked 
upon him as their deliverer from the Roman yoke. In b. c. 
88, no less than eighty thousand Romans residing in various 
parts of Asia Minor are said to have been put to death by 
his orders. Having made himself master of the whole of Asia 
Minor, he sent his general Archelaus with a large army into 
Greece, where the principal cities, and among them Athens 
and Thebes, threw their gates open to him as tlieir deliverer. 


FIRST WAR AGAINST MITIIRIDATES. 


483 


2. The outrage committed by Mithridates, and his in¬ 
vasion of Greece, by which the safety of Italy itself was 
endangered, called for immediate and energetic measures, 
and the Roman senate conferred the supreme command in 
the war upon Sulla, who had greatly distinguished himself 
during the Social War, and was honoured with the consul¬ 
ship for the year b. c. 88. He still was the leader of 
the aristocratic party, and was at the time stationed with an 
army at Nola, conducting the war against the Samnites. 
Marius felt greatly hurt at finding himself in his old age 
superseded by his rival, who was now appointed to the command 
in a war, in which glory and wealth were sure to he the 
reward of success. Smarting under the feeling of jealousy, 
and wounded at being passed over on such an occasion, he 
formed a connection with the bold tribune P. Sulpicius, who, 
partly by a cunning distribution of the new citizens among the 
ancient thirty-five tribes, which secured to them the full and 
unlimited franchise, and partly by violence, carried a law 
depriving Sulla of the command against Mithridates, and 
conferring it upon Marius. When these news were brought to 
Sulla at Nola, he forthwith marched with his army against 
Rome, which, being taken by surprise, was easily forced to admit 
him and his soldiers. Notwithstanding the furious resistance 
offered to him in the streets of Rome, Sulla succeeded in 
putting his enemies to flight; he used his victory with mode¬ 
ration, and outlawed only Marius himself, and eleven of 
the most conspicuous ringleaders. Marius with great difficulty 
escaped to Minturnae, and thence crossed over to Africa, where 
he watched the course of events. 

3. Sulla after his victory remained at Rome for a short 
time, to make such arrangements as might insure the peace 
and tranquillity of the city during his absence in the East. He 
restored the power of the senate, and limited the rights of the 
new citizens; his apparent moderation went so far that he even 


484 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


allowed L. Cornelius Cinna, a leader of the democratic party, 
to be elected to the consulship for b. c. 87, together with his 
aristocratic friend Cn. Octavius. Soon after these new con¬ 
suls had entered upon their office, Sulla went with his army 
to Greece, leaving Pompeius Rufus to continue the war against 
the Samnites. On his arrival in Greece, Boeotia and Thebes 
submitted to him at once; but Athens had to do fearful 
penance for its revolt. The Pontian general Archelaus, after 
two bloody battles at Chaeroneia and Orchomenos, was 
obliged to take to flight, and Athens was taken and plundered 
in b. c. 86, after a long siege, during which the people had 
suffered from the most terrible famine. Sulla's conduct at 
Athens, notwithstanding his Greek culture, was marked by 
such barbarity as to make his name the terror and dread of 
all the Greeks. The fortifications, and even the ancient 
temples, were destroyed or pillaged, and a vast number of the 
treasures of art were carried away; among them was the 
library of Apellico, which is said to have contained the only 
complete copy of the works of Aristotle. When Archelaus, 
notwithstanding the reinforcements he had received, was 
obliged to quit Europe, Mithridates, being himself hard 
pressed in Asia by Fimbria, ordered Archelaus to commence 
negotiations for peace. While these transactions were going 
on, Sulla proceeded to the north, chastising those Greeks who 
had allied themselves with the Pontian king. Peace was not 
finally concluded until b. c. 84, when Sulla had a personal 
interview with the king in Asia. Mithridates had to sur¬ 
render his whole fleet, pay all the expenses of the war, and 
give up all his conquests, so that his empire was limited to the 
original kingdom of Pontus. The revolted cities and provinces 
of Asia had to pay enormous sums to the conquerors; 
and the inhabitants, being reduced by these extortions to 
poverty, became an easy prey to the Roman usurers, who like 
vultures flocked into the unhappy provinces. Fimbria, who 


MARIUS AND CINNA AT ROME. 


485 


belonged to the party of Marins, was, notwithstanding his vic¬ 
tories over Mithridates, treated as an enemy by Sulla, and 
being deserted by his own soldiers, committed suicide. 

4. While Sulla was engaged in Greece and Asia, Rome 
was again the scene of civil bloodshed, for no sooner had 
Sulla left, than Cinna attempted to abolish his regulations, 
to recall those who had been outlawed, and to distribute 
the new citizens among the thirty-five tribes. But the aris¬ 
tocratic party, in a fierce struggle, drove him out of the city 
and deprived him of the consulship. He then proceeded to 
the army at Nola, and rallying around him as many malcon¬ 
tents from all parts of Italy as he could, invited his friend 
Marius to return from Africa. The latter unhesitatingly 
obeyed the call, and landing in Etruria, collected an army 
consisting of hardened peasants, daring robbers, freedmen, 
and new citizens, and in conjunction with Cinna attacked and 
blockaded the city of Rome, which was compelled by hunger 
and internal discord to surrender. Marius now abandoned 
himself without restraint to taking vengeance upon his political 
opponents. Bands of savage soldiers, murdering and robbing, 
marched through the streets of the city, and the leading 
men of the aristocratic party, consulars and senators, such as 
Catulus, the consul Cn. Octavius, the orator M. Antonius, and 
many others, were killed, their houses plundered and devastated, 
their property confiscated, and their bodies left in the streets. 
For five days and five nights Rome experienced all the horrors 
of a city taken by the sword. 

5. After these sanguinary proceedings, Marius caused 
himself to be elected to his seventh consulship for the year 
b. c. 86 ; but the terrible excitement of the time, and the 
debaucheries in which he indulged, during the short period 
of his power, together with the fear of Sulla's return and 
revenge, caused his death about the middle of January. In 
the meantime peace had been concluded with the Samnites, 


486 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


and the franchise had been conferred upon them. All 
Italy was now in the hands of Cinna, and the aristocracy 
repeatedly urged Sulla to return from the East, to save his 
friends and his party ; but he refused to do so, until he should 
have discharged his duty to the republic. At the begin¬ 
ning of b. c. 83, he at length landed in Italy, and proceeded 
to Campania. Cinna, who had been invested with the con¬ 
sulship for four successive years, was murdered by his own 
soldiers. By this act the Marian party was deprived of the 
last able man among them; for Carbo, Marius the younger, 
and ISTorbanus, who were now at their head, did not possess 
the talent and energy required by their situation. Sulla in 
several battles defeated the armies opposed to him, and 
induced the soldiers belonging to them to serve under his own 
standard. In b. c. 82 he drove young Marius to Praeneste, 
where he was closely besieged, and in despair killed him¬ 
self. Sulla then entered Pome, where the democrats had 
perpetrated the greatest horrors against those who were sus¬ 
pected of favouring their opponents. At this moment an army 
commanded by the Samnite Pontius Telesinus marched 
against Rome, which he hoped to take by surprise; but 
Sulla met the enemy at the Colline gate, and a bloody and 
murderous battle was fought, in which the democratic party 
was so completely defeated, that in his despair, Pontius Tele¬ 
sinus made away with himself. 

6. This battle was the death-blow of the Marian party, 
and Sulla was now undisputed master of Italy, from which all 
his enemies fled. A few days after the battle, eight thousand 
prisoners were butchered in the Circus, while Sulla had 
assembled the senate in the adjoining temple of Bellona, 
where the cries and shrieks of the unfortunate victims could 
be distinctly heard. The senators, terrified by these scenes, 
readily obeyed the commands of the conqueror. More than 
one hundred thousand lives had already been sacrificed during 


SULLA DICTATOR. 


487 


the civil war ; but Sulla, not yet satisfied, devised a new and 
unprecedented measure for punishing those whom he sus¬ 
pected. He set on foot a proscription, that is, he drew up a list 
of all those whom he chose to regard as his enemies, and set it 
up in public. Any one might kill a person whose name was there 
registered, and rewards were given for the heads of the slain. 
Their estates were confiscated, and their descendants for 
ever deprived of the franchise. This measure, one of the 
most fearful on record, tore asunder every tie of blood, friend¬ 
ship, and hospitality ; sons were armed against their fathers, 
and slaves against their masters; for those who concealed or 
protected a proscribed person, were punished in the same way 
as the proscribed themselves. No less than one thousand 
six hundred equites were thus murdered, and among the mon¬ 
sters who distinguished themselves during those days of 
terror, we find Catiline, who some years later planned the 
destruction of the city of Rome. 

7. After having thus cleared Rome and Italy of all oppo¬ 
nents, Sulla caused himself to be appointed dictator for an 
indefinite period, to enable him to reform the constitution and 
the law. He entered upon this office towards the end of b. c. 
82. The first thing he did was to reward those soldiers through 
whose services he had gained his present position. Twenty- 
three legions had colonies assigned to them, consisting mainly 
of the towns which had supported his enemies. In these 
military colonies, the soldiers constituted the ruling body, 
and being scattered over all Italy, they afforded him the 
means of keeping the country in submission; ten thousand 
slaves were manumitted and formed his body guard under 
the name of the Cornelii; the number of senators was 
increased by persons ready to do anything for the dictator, 
however low or vulgar their origin might be. After these 
preliminary measures, by which he secured his power, he 
proceeded to reform the constitution. His object being to 


488 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


restore the ancient constitution of Rome, he first reduced the 
powers of the tribunes to what they had been originally, and 
by the same act he deprived the comitia tributa of all their 
legislative functions. His second measure consisted in restor¬ 
ing the courts for trying offences against the republic to the 
senators, to whom they had belonged before the time of the 
Gracchi. Lastly, Sulla increased the number of public officers, 
that of the praetors to eight, that of the quaestors to twenty, 
and the members of the colleges of pontiffs and augurs to fifteen. 
These and some regulations relating to the administration ol 
the provinces were his chief political reforms, and they show 
that he was one of those shortsighted men who fancy that by 
restoring ancient forms they can restore the spirit of bygone times. 
The creation of Sulla was a mere body without a soul, and could 
not last. He was more successful in his reforms of the criminal 
law, which he was the first to place on a permanent basis. 
After having made these arrangements, Sulla, to the surprise 
of every one, in b. c. 79, laid down his dictatorship, and with¬ 
drew to Puteoli, where he lived as a private person, until, in 
b. c. 78, he died of a most disgusting disease which had pro¬ 
bably been brought on by his voluptuousness and debauchery. 
Vice seems to have been his delight, and mimes, buffoons, and 
prostitutes were his favourite companions in his leisure hours, 
and during his luxurious meals. At the time of his death he 
was engaged in writing his memoirs in Greek ; but the part 
he had finished has not come down to us. 

8. During the time of Sulla’s dictatorship, the few rem¬ 
nants of the Marian party were dispersed in Sicily, Africa, 
and Spain, where they maintained themselves and increased 
their numbers by malcontents from Italy. Cn. Pompey, who 
had gained his first laurels during the Social War, was sent by 
Sulla to Sicily and Africa, and annihilated the Marians in 
those countries, by causing Carbo to be assassinated in Sicily, 
and by defeating in Africa Domitius Ahenobarbus and his 


SECOND WAR AGAINST MITHRIDATES. 


489 


Numidian supporter Hiarbas. On his return Pompey was 
honoured by Sulla with the surname of the Great, and obtained 
a triumph, although he was only an eques and no more than 
twenty-four years old. During the same period the Romans 
were engaged in a second war against Mithridates, from b. c. 
83 till 81. Soon after Sulla's departure from Asia, the king 
repented of the terms of peace, and as it had not received the 
sanction of the Roman senate, he refused to give up Cappa¬ 
docia to Ariobarzanes, as he had promised to do. Archelaus 
then deserted to the Romans, and persuaded L. Murena, the 
commander of the Roman forces in Asia, to attack the king at 
once, and not to wait until he should commence hostilities. 
This advice was adopted. Murena proceeded into Cappadocia 
and plundered the wealthy temple at Comana ; in consequence 
of this aggression Mithridates attacked Murena in the vicinity 
of Sinope, and defeated him. Peace, however, was concluded 
in b. c. 81, and Mithridates remained in possession of a part 
of Cappadocia. 


CHAPTER XII. 

FROM THE DEATH OF SULLA TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL 
WAR BETWEEN CAESAR AND POMPEY. 

1. In the very year of Sulla’s death an attempt was made 
by M. iEmilius Lepidus to abolish his ill-judged constitution 
but he was defeated by the party of Sulla. The attempt, 
however, did not remain without its effects, for the tribunes 
and others henceforth, year after year, endeavoured to demolish 
one part after another of the edifice reared by Sulla, until at 
length, in b. c. 70, Cn. Pompey, in his consulship, carried a 



490 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


law by which the power of the tribunes was restored to what 
it had been before the reforms of Sulla; and the praetor L. 
Aurelius Cotta enacted a law by which the courts of justice 
remodelled by Sulla were henceforth to be composed of senators, 
equites, and tribuni aerarii. Pompey, though a partizan of 
Sulla, carried or supported these measures, because he was 
anxious to obtain popularity at any cost. He gained his 
end most completely, for although there were among his 
contemporaries men of far greater abilities, yet, partly by 
his singular good fortune, partly by his kindly and sometimes 
chivalrous conduct, he succeeded in winning the confidence 
and admiration of the citizens as well as of the soldiers, and 
at this time no Roman enjoyed greater popularity than he. 

2. In b. c. 82, when Sulla entered Rome, Q. Sertorius, 
the noblest and ablest among the democratic leaders, having 
become disgusted with the proceedings of his party, went 
with an army to Spain, in the hope of being able there 
to maintain the interests of the popular cause. Here he was 
joined by the exiled and persecuted remnants of the Marian 
party, and by his prudence and kindness, as well as by his 
honesty and military ability, he succeeded in winning the 
confidence of the Spaniards, and founded an independent 
republic of Spain, consisting of Romans and Spaniards, and 
defended by an excellently trained army. The new republic 
was to be governed by a senate of three hundred, and two 
consuls, the Spaniards being eligible to the great offices as 
well as the Romans. In the town of Osca he established a 
great school, in which the sons of the Spanish nobles were to 
receive a Roman education. His plans succeeded admirably, and 
Sertorius was the darling of the Spaniards and the Romans. 
War was commenced against him in b.c. 79, but neither Q. 
Metellus nor Pompey was able to gain any advantages over 
him. In b.c. 74 Sertorius formed an alliance with Mithri- 
dates of Pontus, hoping thereby to place Rome between two 


SERVILE WAR. 


491 


fires; but disunion among tbe Spaniards brought about a 
change which saved Rome from this dangerous enemy. In 
B. c. 7 2, Perperna, whose ambition had been thwarted by the 
great captain, formed a conspiracy against him, and murdered 
him during a banquet at Osca. Perperna then placed himself 
at the head of the army, but in his first encounter with 
Pompey his whole army was cut to pieces, and he himself 
fell into the hands of his enemy and was put to death. The 
Spanish republic was overturned, and the last remnant of the 
Marian party was now annihilated. 

3. The number of slaves that had been carried into Italy 
from all the countries round the Mediterranean, and the cruel 
manner in wdiich they were occasionally treated, could not 
fail to give rise to insurrections. In Sicily a second servile 
war had been carried on from b. c. 102 to 99, in which 
thousands were killed on both sides. A similar insurrection 
broke out in b. c. 73 at Capua in Campania, where about 
seventy slaves trained as gladiators, headed by the Thracian 
Spartacus, broke loose. Opening by force the prisons of other 
slaves in southern Italy, and calling on them to assert their 
freedom, they soon increased their number to ten thousand, 
all of whom were provided with arms. Spartacus seems at 
first to have intended only to restore the liberated slaves 
to their respective homes, or to find a country where they 
might be free; but having defeated several consular armies 
which attempted to prevent the escape of the slaves, he formed 
the plan of destroying the power of Rome, and of taking 
revenge on the oppressors of mankind. The free population 
of southern Italy had already been very much thinned during 
the Social War, and the sad effects of this now became visible 
during the conflict with the slaves, who murdered without 
mercy and destroyed everything that came in their way. 
What saved Rome and Italy was the want of military disci¬ 
pline among the slaves and their irregular movements through 


492 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


the country. It was these circumstances that enabled the 
praetor M. Licinius Crassus, who in b. c. 71 overtook the 
army of slaves in Lucania on the river Silarus, to gain a 
complete victory over them. Spartacus himself was killed, 
and this loss deprived the slaves of all hope. Thousands 
were slain, and their bodies were partly impaled along the 
high roads, and partly left unburied, to strike terror into 
their fellows. A body of about five thousand made their 
escape to the north of Italy, endeavouring to seek safety in 
Gaul; but they fell in with Pompey, who was just returning 
from Spain, and were completely cut to pieces. 

4. On his return to Eome, Pompey was rewarded for his 
victories by the consulship for the year b.c. 70, during which, for 
the sake of increasing his popularity, he displayed the greatest 
liberality towards the people, and assisted in abolishing the 
reforms of Sulla. After the expiration of his consulship he 
lived for a few years in retirement, enjoying his reputation 
and his wealth, until a new opportunity offered itself. For 
several years past all parts of the Mediterranean had been 
so much infested by pirates that it was scarcely safe for mer¬ 
chant vessels to sail from port to port. The pirates plundered 
the maritime towns, and even ventured to land in the very 
vicinity of Pome and destroy ships in the port of Ostia. They 
consisted chiefly of people that had become homeless in conse¬ 
quence of the Roman conquests in the East, and were driven 
to piracy by sheer misery and poverty ; they had their strong¬ 
holds and warehouses to deposit their plunder principally in 
Cilicia, on the south coast of Asia Minor. The Romans had 
been warring against them ever since the year b.c. 78, but no 
impression had been made on them ; and Rome itself was in 
constant danger of famine, as the necessary supplies could not 
be imported with safety. Under these circumstances, the tri¬ 
bune Aulus Gabinius, in b.c. 67, proposed that Pompey should 
be invested for three years with the command of all the coasts 


THIRD WAR AGAINST MITIIRIDATES. 


493 


of the Mediterranean to a considerable distance from the sea, 
and that he should he liberally provided with everything 
necessary to put an end to the war against the pirates. This 
measure was a dangerous one, and met with strong opposition, 
hut the people readily consented to invest their favourite with 
all the powers and means demanded for him. His success 
more than justified their confidence, and the war which he 
now commenced, and which he gloriously terminated in about 
three months, is the most brilliant exploit of Pompey’s whole 
life. He completely swept the Mediterranean from west to 
east, and drove the pirates into the Cilician sea, where he 
defeated them in a great battle ; many of them were killed or 
taken prisoners, and the rest surrendered. He then took and 
destroyed their fortified places in Cilicia, and assigned settle¬ 
ments to the survivors, that they might be able to earn their 
livelihood without falling back upon their dangerous practices. 

5. After the termination of this war, Pompey did not 
return to Italy, but remained in Asia Minor, probably in the 
hope of being appointed, in his absence, commander in the 
third war against Mithridates of Pontus, in which Rome 
had already been engaged for some years; for he well knew 
that his friends at Rome would do anything to gratify him. 
In b. c. 74, Mithridates had been tempted by Sertorius to 
commence fresh hostilities against Rome. King Nicomedes 
of Bithynia had just died, and bequeathed his kingdom to the 
Romans. Mithridates refused to recognise this bequest, and 
at once invaded Bithynia, while his fleet sailed out against 
that of the Romans. Having gained a victory at sea, the 
king laid siege to the wealthy and populous town of Cyzicus, 
which was in alliance with Rome. While this siege was going 
on, L. Lucullus arrived with an army in Asia, and suc¬ 
ceeded in cutting off the king from all supplies of provisions, 
b. c. 73. This and some other losses which he sustained for 
the moment deprived Mithridates of all hope, and in his 


494 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


despair lie fled to his son-in-law Tigranes, king of Armenia, 
while Lucullus entered the kingdom of Pontus and compelled 
the towns to surrender one after another. After the conquest 
of Pontus, Lucullus spent some time in Asia to regulate the 
affairs of the conquered countries, which were inundated by 
greedy usurers and Roman officials. When at length Tigranes 
refused to surrender Mithridates, Lucullus, in b. c. 69, 
advanced against Tigranocerta, the capital of the Armenian 
king, near which he overpowered a vast army of Asiatics. 
Both kings took to flight, but Tigranes, who made an attempt 
to defend himself, was defeated a second time near Artaxata. 
Lucullus now made preparations to subdue the whole of Arme¬ 
nia, when a mutiny broke out in his army, which was headed 
by the notorious P. Clodius. Lucullus succeeded, indeed, in 
quelling the revolt, but Mithridates, availing himself of the 
favourable opportunity, effected his return to his own kingdom. 
Lucullus pursued him, but owing to the mutinous spirit of his 
soldiers, he was scarcely able to finish the campaign in which 
he was engaged. Just at this time, b. c. 67, M.’Acilius 
Glabrio was sent from Rome as successor to Lucullus, who 
was obliged to give up the command to him. This man did 
absolutely nothing, but allowed all the advantages gained by 
Lucullus to slip out of his hands, while Mithridates re-esta¬ 
blished himself in Pontus and Cappadocia. Lucullus, who 
was possessed of enormous wealth, returned to Italy, where 
his numerous palaces, villas, and parks formed rallying points 
for men of refined taste in art and literature. He is said 
to have introduced into Italy the cherry tree from Cerasus, a 
town of Colchis. 

V 

6. The inactivity of the Roman commander and the 
increasing power of Mithridates, afforded a welcome oppor¬ 
tunity to the friends of Pompey who was still in Asia, of 
getting the command transferred to him. Accordingly, 
in b. c. 66, the tribune Manilius brought forward a bill to this 


CN. POMPEY IN ASIA. 


495 


effect. It was supported by Julius Caesar and Cicero, and 
Pompey was intrusted with additional powers in Asia Minor 
to enable him to bring the Mithridatic war to a close. Pom¬ 
pey, having received large reinforcements and concluded an 
alliance with the Parthians, fought a battle by night against 
Mithridates on the banks of the Euphrates, in which the king 
was defeated and put to flight. Tigranes became a vassal of 
the Roman republic, and Mithridates escaped into Colchis. 
After having founded the town of Nicopolis, Pompey, in b. c. 
65, pursued the king, and victoriously traversed Albania and 
Iberia, about mount Caucasus; but owing to the difficulties 
he had to contend with in those wild and remote countries, 
he gave up the pursuit of the enemy. The latter, still undis¬ 
mayed, formed the gigantic scheme of entering into alliances 
with the Scythians and invading Italy from the north-east. But 
his own son Pharnaces headed an insurrection of the soldiers 
against his father at Panticapaeum in the Crimea. Mith¬ 
ridates, knowing that his life was not safe, took poison which 
for some time he had been carrying about with him, b. c. 63. 
Pompey, to whom the body was sent, ordered it to be buried 
with regal magnificence, but gave to the unnatural son of his 
great enemy, the sovereignty over the countries about the 
Cimmerian Bosporus. 

7. After having concluded peace with the Albanians 
and Iberians, Pompey went to Syria, where he unceremo¬ 
niously deposed king Antiochus XIII., and put an end to 
that effete kingdom, changing it, with Phoenicia, into the 
Roman province of Syria. In Asia Minor, Bithynia, with a 
part of Pontus, was likewise constituted as a province; but 
Armenia Magna, the northern part of Pontus, Paphlagonia, 
Galatia, and other countries, were given to tributary kings, 
who recognised the supremacy of Rome. The same was done 
in Judaea, where, after taking the temple of Jerusalem, he 
appointed Hyrcanus tetrarch, taking his brother Aristobulus, 


496 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


who had bravely defended himself, with his children, to 
Eome. Many Jews in their despair made away with them¬ 
selves, throwing themselves down from the walls, or setting 
fire to their houses. The real ruler of Judaea, however, 
was the Idumaean Antipater, the father of Herod, and a cun¬ 
ning supporter of the Roman interest. When all these 
arrangements were made, Pompey, in b. c. 62, quitted Asia 
and returned to Italy, but did not arrive at Rome until the 
beginning of b. c. 61. He celebrated a most splendid triumph, 
and the sums which he handed over to the treasury were 
enormous. His popularity was immense, and he took the 
greatest care to impress the people with the notion that he 
was happy in the condition of a simple Roman citizen. His 
great ambition was to induce the senate to sanction the 
arrangements he had made in Asia; and his vanity, there¬ 
fore, was not a little wounded, when he found this desire 
opposed by men of the greatest influence. He felt so 
mortified that he resolved to abandon the optimates, and join 
the popular party, a step which ultimately led to his own ruin. 

8. Some time before Pompey’s return to Italy, M. Tul¬ 
lius Cicero had been honoured by his fellow-citizens with the 
name of father of his country. Cicero, born at Arpinum in 
b. c. 106, was the son of very respectable parents, and by 
his talent, industry, and irreproachable conduct, had so much 
distinguished himself, that although a novus homo , he obtained 
in due time most of the great offices of the republic, and 
was in the end even raised to the consulship. He had studied 
at Athens and Rhodes, and had devoted himself with such 
zeal to his pursuits, especially those of oratory and philoso¬ 
phy, that as an orator he was surpassed by none, and was the 
first who successfully endeavoured to popularise the philoso¬ 
phical speculations of the Greeks among his countrymen. As 
a statesman he was less great, because his friendship for 
Pompey and Caesar led him often to act the part of a media- 


M. TULLIUS CICERO. 


497 


tor between them, which led him into inconsistencies and con¬ 
tradictions. But his patriotism, his strong sense of justice, 
and his general virtues as a citizen, are acknowledged by all, 
and ought to make us judge leniently of his vanity and other 
foibles. In his consulship, b. c. 63, Catiline, a partizan of 
Sulla, and a man of patrician origin, but of most profligate 
character, and, like many others of his class, overwhelmed with 
debts, formed a conspiracy, which was joined by some reck¬ 
less nobles of the highest rank, whose circumstances were so 
desperate that they saw no hope for themselves except in a 
revolution. Catiline had attempted similar things before, but 
had been thwarted by the vigilance of patriotic men, and by 
his own impatience. He and his associates now determined 
to murder Cicero, to set Rome on fire, to overthrow the con¬ 
stitution, and in the midst of the confusion to usurp the reins 
of government and, probably, to establish a military despotism. 
But the watchfulness of Cicero, whose four speeches against 
Catiline, distinguished alike for manly courage and spirited 
eloquence, we still possess, prevented the infamous scheme. 
Catiline, in spite of his cunning and power of dissimulation, 
was unmasked by the consul, and obliged to quit the city. 
The senate, on the proposal of Cicero and Cato, condemned 
Catiline and some of his associates who had remained at 
Rome. His accomplices were strangled in the Capitoline 
prison; but Catiline himself, who with the rest of his fol¬ 
lowers had escaped to the north of Etruria, w^as killed in 
the battle of Pistoria, wdiere he and all his friends fought 
with a bravery and courage worthy of a better cause. 
Cicero’s joy at having saved his country and his fellow 
citizens from dire destruction did not last long, for many of 
the secret friends and supporters of Catiline remained at Rome 
longing for an opportunity of taking vengeance upon the man 
who had so nobly defended his country’s cause. 

9. Ever since the time of Marius and Sulla, the leading 


498 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


men at Eome made all possible efforts and sacrifices to 
gain popularity; this popularity, however, was not sought 
after for the purpose of enabling them to serve the interests 
of their country, but to satisfy their own avarice and ambi¬ 
tion, whence the history of that period down to the establish¬ 
ment of the empire is scarcely more than the personal history 
of the men who endeavoured to eclipse one another. By 
far the most eminent and the most gifted among the men 
of this time was C. Julius Caesar, born in b.c. 100; he 
was fast rising in popular favour, while Pompey was reposing 
on his laurels, and enjoying the fruits of his previous vic¬ 
tories. Caesar, though unscrupulous in the application of 
the means to gain his ends, had a thoroughly cultivated 
mind, and was indefatigable in his activity ; he was no 
less great as an orator and an author than as a general 
and statesman. Julia, an aunt of his, had been married to 
C. Marius, for whom he always entertained great affection, 
whence in the time of Sulla his very life was threatened. In 
b. c. 65 he came forward as the avowed leader of the remnants 
of the Marian or popular party. His liberality was unbounded, 
and he became overwhelmed with debts, but a campaign 
against the revolted Lusitanians in Spain in b. c. 61 enabled 
him to satisfy his creditors as well as his own extravagant 
wants. He obtained the consulship for b. c. 59, and in that 
year strengthened himself by a close alliance with Pompey, who 
had then renounced the party of the optimates, and by effecting 
a reconciliation between Pompey and Crassus. These three 
men, forming what is commonly called the first triumvirate, 
agreed that no political measures should be adopted which were 
displeasing to any one of them. Being at the head of the 
democratic party, they held the fate of the republic in their 
own hands. A number of popular measures were passed, 
such as an agrarian law, by which twenty thousand citizens 
received assignments of land. Caesar also prevailed upon the 


P. CLODIUS. 


499 


senate to sanction the arrangements made by Pompey in Asia. 
Having thus formed a powerful party for himself, he caused 
the provinces of Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul with Illyri- 
cnm to be assigned to himself. 

10. After the expiration of his consulship, however, he did 
not proceed to his province at once, but remained in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Rome with his army to support the unprincipled 
P. Clodius in his machinations against Cicero, who had offended 
Caesar. In b. c. 61 Clodius had committed some sacrilegious 
act for which he was brought to trial. Cicero then spoke 
against him, and provoked him on several other occasions. 
Clodius vowed vengeance, and after having caused himself to 
be adopted into a plebeian family, obtained, by the aid of 
Caesar, the tribuneship for b. c. 58. He first secured the 
favour of the multitude by several popular measures, and then 
carried a law that every one who had put to death a Roman 
citizen without a formal trial should be outlawed. This law 
was aimed at Cicero, who, on the authority of a mere decree 
of the senate, had caused some of the associates of Catiline to 
be strangled in prison. Cicero was abandoned by the triumvirs, 
who alone had it in their power to save him, and in order 
to escape condemnation went into exile. After this he was 
formally declared an outlaw, his house was burnt down, and 
two of his villas were destroyed. This measure was followed 
by others of an equally atrocious character. In order to get 
rid of a troublesome critic at Rome, Clodius sent Cato to 
Cyprus with orders to expel the king of the island, who was 
a brother of the king of Egypt, and to make Cyprus a Roman 
province. But no sooner had Clodius’ tribuneship expired, 
than a reaction took place in the public mind, in consequence 
of which Cicero was recalled from exile, b. c. 57. Caesar 
had not departed for Gaul until the end of April b. c. 58, 
when Clodius had gained his end. 

11. While Caesar was engaged in Gaul, which had been 


500 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


assigned to liim for five years, things at Rome became worse 
and worse. In b. c. 55 Pompey and Crassus obtained the 
consulship, and a law was carried by which Caesar’s governor¬ 
ship of Gaul was prolonged for other five years, while Pom¬ 
pey obtained Spain, and Crassus Syria. Pompey did not 
go to his province, but allowed it to be governed by his 
legates, while he himself remained at Rome, w r here he exercised 
a sort of dictatorial power ; but Crassus, though advanced in 
years, could not resist the temptation to go to Syria himself, 
where he hoped to be able to satisfy his insatiable avarice. 
He robbed and plundered wherever he appeared, and in b. c. 
54 undertook an expedition against the Parthians, who had 
formed a powerful empire on the east of the Euphrates, and 
regarded themselves as the successors of the ancient Persians. 
They were governed by the dynasty of the Arsacidae, and 
their king at this time was Orodes or Arsaces XIV., who 
had assembled a powerful army in Mesopotamia to oppose 
the Romans, Crassus, guided by a treacherous Arab, boldly 
crossed the Euphrates, but in a sandy desert near Carrhae 
he was defeated, taken prisoner, and killed, after his son had 
been put to death before his own eyes. The Roman army 
was nearly annihilated, and the wdiole camp and all the 
standards fell into the hands of the conquerors. The war 
against the Parthians, however, was continued for several 
years, after the remnants of the army of Crassus had been 
led back to Syria by the brave legate C. Cassius. 

12. At the time when Caesar undertook the conquest of 
Gaul, the whole country between the Rhine and the Atlantic 
was inhabited by a number of Celtic tribes, the south-western 
part, called Aquitania, alone being occupied by Iberians. 
On the eastern frontier the Germans had already commenced 
making encroachments. The southern part of Gaul, that is, 
the country about the mouth of the Rhone, had been conquered 
by the Romans as early as b. c. 126, and a few years later 


GAUL. 


501 


tlie towns of Aquae Sextiae (Aix) and Narbo Marcius (Nar- 
bonne) were founded. This part of Gaul was constituted a 
Roman province (whence its modern name Provence), and the 
Greek colony of Massilia was the means of spreading civili¬ 
sation not only over the coast districts, but over the whole of 
Gaul. Among the numerous Celtic tribes, one, such as the 
Arverni, Sequani, and AEdui, appears always to have exer¬ 
cised a kind of supremacy over the rest, though this did not 
produce any political union among them. Their common 
characteristics, however, were, that they were governed by a 
chivalrous kind of nobility, and by a powerful priesthood 
called Druids, while the great body of the nation were little 
better than serfs. The people were skilled in several of 
the arts of civilised life, and in many parts lived together in 
towns ; but they were fierce and warlike, and, urged on by 
their priests and bards, rushed into battle with great vehemence, 
though they were wanting in perseverance. Caesar undertook 
the conquest of the whole country, for which its invasion by 
the Germans and a migration of the Helvetii, likewise a 
Celtic people, afforded a welcome pretext. 

13. The Helvetii had just at that time been tempted to 
quit their own poor and unproductive country, and seek new 
homes in the south-western parts of Gaul. Caesar, appre¬ 
hending great danger to the Roman province from this migra¬ 
tion, attacked and defeated first one numerous clan of the nation, 
and soon after the remainder in a great battle near Bibracte. 
These disasters obliged the Helvetii to return to their own 
devastated country, on quitting which they had burnt and 
destroyed everything. About fourteen years before this time 
the Germans under Ariovistus had crossed the Rhine, having 
been invited by the Sequani to assist them against the iEdui. 
Ariovistus had repeatedly defeated the iEdui, and had com¬ 
pelled even the Sequani to give up to him one-third of their 
country ; in consequence of which large numbers of Germans 


502 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


had taken up their abode in Gaul. At the request of the 
iEdui, Caesar now attacked the Germans, and having com¬ 
pletely defeated them in a pitched battle near Vesontio, he 
compelled Ariovistus with the remainder of his army to 
retrace his steps across the Rhine. In b. c. 57 Caesar was 
successful against the Belgae in the north of Gaul, who had 
formed themselves into a confederacy, and now took up arms 
against the Roman invaders. He managed to prevent their 
union, and defeated the several tribes one after another. In 
the following year he subdued the people in the north-west 
of Gaul. 

14. By these repeated losses, the strength of Gaul was 
nearly broken, and Caesar now turned against two German 
tribes, the Usipetes and Tenchteri, who had crossed the Rhine, 
near its mouth, with the intention of settling in Gaul. The 
unfortunate barbarians, trusting to the honesty of the Roman 
proconsul, were treacherously attacked and butchered, while 
the negotiations for peace were going on. After this Caesar 
returned southward, and crossed the Rhine, by a wooden 
bridge of his own construction, in the neighbourhood of 
Neuwied; his object was probably to strike terror into the 
Germans ; for after having ravaged their country, which was 
thickly covered with forests, he returned to Gaul, and broke 
down the bridge. In the same summer, b. c. 55, he also made 
an expedition into Britain, which, like Gaul, was inhabited 
by Celts. He landed, after a vigorous resistance, on the 
coast of Kent, and some of the British tribes offered to 
submit to him, but on being informed of his fleet having 
sustained a great loss at sea, they took up arms to repel the 
invader. Being defeated, however, they were obliged to 
submit to Caesar, who, immediately after his victory, was 
compelled by the late season of the year, to return to Gaul. In 
b. c. 54 he invaded Britain a second time ; the natives, under 
their chief Cassivelaunus, fought bravely, but were defeated 


CAESAR IN GAUL. 


503 


several times, and Caesar conquered the greater part of Essex 
and Middlesex. Peace was then concluded, and the Britons 
having promised to pay a fixed annual tribute, and given 
hostages, Caesar returned to Gaul. But as he could not 
afford to leave any troops behind in the island, these promises 
were soon forgotten and neglected. 

15. In b. c. 53, several of the Gallic tribes formed a con¬ 
federacy to recover their independence, and were supported 
by some Germans who had come across the Rhine. But the 
insurgents were subdued, and Caesar pursued the Germans 
across the Rhine, where they found shelter in their forests and 
marshes, into which Caesar could not follow them with safety. 
The cruelty with which Caesar treated the leaders of the 
Gallic tribes which had risen in arms, at length set the whole 
of Gaul in a blaze. Even the iEdui, who had hitherto been 
the steady friends of the Romans, joined the insurrection, 
and the Arvernian Yercingetorix was the soul of the whole 
undertaking. The war in Gaul now assumed a more for¬ 
midable aspect than ever. After various enterprises, Vercin- 
getorix retreated to Alesia in Burgundy. Caesar laid siege 
to the town, which was believed to be impregnable; he 
himself was surrounded by swarms of Gauls, and his position 
was perilous in the highest degree, but his genius overcame 
every obstacle, and, in b. c. 52, Alesia was compelled by 
famine to surrender. The fall of this town virtually decided 
the fate of Gaul, though some tribes still continued in arms. 
They were reduced, however, in the course of b. c. 51, when 
the Belgae also began to stir ; but it was now too late. 
Caesar, having subdued the Belgae, all Gaul, and the Helvetii, 
returned in b. c. 50 to Cisalpine Gaul, leaving his army in 
the country beyond the Alps. His men were attached to 
him in the highest degree, and his extraordinary exploits in 
Gaul had excited universal admiration of his genius and skill. 

16. While Caesar was engaged in Gaul, Pompeyhad en- 


504 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


deavoured, by every means, to increase his popularity; his 
marriage with Caesar’s daughter Julia for a time served as a 
bond of union between the two ambitious men ; but her death, 
in b. c. 54, rent asunder the tie, and the fall of Crassus in 
Mesopotamia in b. c. 53 left the Roman empire the bone of 
contention between Caesar and Pompey. Caesar had kept up 
an active correspondence with his friends at Rome, and con¬ 
siderable apprehensions prevailed in the city in consequence 
of the turbulent and riotous proceedings of his partizans, 
such as Clodius, C. Curio, and others, who received enormous 
bribes from Gaul. In b. c. 52, Pompey was for a time 
sole consul, until he chose Metellus Scipio, his father- 
in-law, for his colleague. The aristocracy again began to 
look upon Pompey as their only safeguard against the 
machinations of Caesar. In b. c. 51, Claudius Marcellus, 
one of the leading optimates, proposed that Caesar should 
be recalled from Gaul, and a successor appointed ; no 
opportunity was, in fact, overlooked for hurting or insulting 
him. In b. c. 50 the consulship was in the hands of two 
aristocrats; but Caesar by his bribes succeeded in gaining 
over some of the leading men. The time had now come when 
the optimates thought it right to resort to energetic measures, 
and although the proconsulship of Caesar had not yet expired, 
the senate, on the proposal of Metellus Scipio, passed a 
decree peremptorily demanding of him to disband his army by 
a certain day, and declaring him a public enemy, in case he 
should refuse compliance. Two tribunes, M. Antonius and 
Q. Cassius, who had in vain opposed the decree, and de¬ 
manded that Pompey should likewise resign his power and 
disband his armies, fled to Caesar, who was stationed at 
Ravenna in Cisalpine Gaul with only a small part of his 
forces ; they called upon him to come to Rome as the avenger 
of the tribunician power, which had been trodden under foot 
by his adversaries. Pompey was full of confidence that h 9 


CAESAR CROSSES THE RUBICON. 


505 


would be successful in the ensuing struggle, and the optimates 
entertained the same feelings, so that even the most necessary 
precautions were neglected. But recklessness and foolish 
conceit found out too soon that they had miscalculated. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

THE CIVIL WAR BETWEEN POMPEY AND CAESAR, AND THE SUB¬ 
SEQUENT EVENTS DOWN TO THE BATTLE OF ACTIUM. 

1. The arrival of the tribunes before Caesar at Ravenna, 
in b.c. 49, was a decisive moment, and after a short hesitation 
as to whether he should cross the little stream Rubicon, which 
separated Cisalpine Gaul from Italy, he called out, “ The die 
is cast!” and crossed the river with a small force, having 
sent orders to Gaul for the other legions to follow him. 
Accompanied by his faithful veterans, he hastened rapidly 
through Umbria and the Sabellian districts, to prevent his 
adversaries completing their preparations before his arrival. 
His renown went before him, his kindness and affability won 
the hearts of all, and the gates of the towns on his route 
were thrown open to him. Pompey, who had been roused 
too late from his feeling of security, did not venture to await 
the enemy's arrival at Rome, but with newly enlisted and 
untrained recruits, a few trustworthy soldiers, and a large 
number of senators and optimates, fled to Brundusium; and 
when Caesar approached that port, Pompey and his retinue 
sailed across to Epirus. His vaunting boast, that he need 
only stamp upon the ground with his foot to call forth legions, 
had all its emptiness now fully proved. After his departure, 
all Italy joined Caesar, who now returned to Rome, where 
he acted with great mildness, though showing in every thing 



506 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


that he regarded himself as the real sovereign of the state. 
He took possession of the treasury, and, leaving Pompey for 
the present to his fate, immediately set out for Spain against 
Pompey’s lieutenants and armies. By his surpassing talent 
as a commander, and the astonishing rapidity of his move¬ 
ments, he drove them into such straits that, after most of 
their troops had deserted, they were compelled to surrender. 
Afranius and Petreius, the legates, were dismissed unhurt, 
and the remnant of the army was disbanded. On his return 
from Spain, Caesar had to compel Massilia, which desired to 
remain neutral, to side with him; the city was taken, but 
treated with great mildness. In the meantime, C. Curio had 
taken possession of Sicily, the Pompeian party having evacu¬ 
ated it, but in an attempt also to conquer Africa, he was killed. 

2. While yet engaged at Massilia Caesar was made dic¬ 
tator ; as such he returned to Rome, but in order not to 
alarm the republicans too much, he caused himself to be 
elected consul for b. c. 48, and laid down the dictator¬ 
ship. He then passed several measures to restore order and 
tranquillity in the city ; he extended the franchise to Cisalpine 
Gaul, reduced debts, and restored exi'es and the.children of 
those who had been proscribed by Sulla. His stay at Rome 
was very brief; and as soon as the necessary preparations 
were made, he crossed the Adriatic from Brundusium in pur¬ 
suit of Pompey, b. c. 48. Pompey had not been inactive, 
but had collected troops, ships, and supplies from all parts of 
the East, so that in point of numbers he had the advantage over 
Caesar. The latter besieged his enemy at Dyrrhachium, but 
with so little success that he almost despaired; instead, however, 
of giving way to this feeling, he boldly marched from the 
coast towards Thessaly, where every inch of ground had to be 
conquered. Pompey’s former confidence now returned, and 
imagining that his enemy had taken to flight, he followed 
him with all speed, hoping to annihilate him at one blow. 


BATTLE OF PIIARSALUS. 


507 


Caesar pitched his camp near Pharsalus, and Pompey, being 
urged on by the inexperienced nobles, fought the decisive 
battle of Pharsalus on the 9th of August, b. c. 48. His 
army was completely defeated, though it was twice as nume¬ 
rous as that of his opponent, and the camp, filled with treasures 
and luxuries of every kind, fell into the hands of the con¬ 
querors. Pompey, having now lost all hope, fled to Lesbos, 
and thence to Egypt, where he had reason to expect a 
hospitable reception ; but young Ptolemy Dionysus, the king 
of Egypt, in the hope of securing the favour of Caesar, 
ordered him to be murdered even before he reached the shore, 
and his body was left unburied on the beach. 

3. A few days after this tragic end of Pompey, Caesar 
arrived with a small force in Egypt, and the sad fate of his 
rival is said to have brought tears into his eyes. The author 
of the murder did not receive the expected reward, and being 
called upon to act as mediator between the young king and 
his sister Cleopatra, who by their father’s request ought to 
have reigned in common, Caesar decided in favour of the 
beautiful and fascinating Cleopatra. This decision involved 
him in a war with the young king and the people of Alex¬ 
andria ; for a time he was exposed to very great danger, as he 
had only few troops with him. With wonderful skill and 
adroitness he defended himself in the royal palace against the 
infuriated and demoralised populace, and when the palace 
was set on fire, he escaped by swimming to a ship lying at 
anchor. But when his reinforcements arrived he compelled 
Alexandria to surrender, and as the young king had been 
drowned in the Nile during the disturbances, he restored 
Cleopatra to the throne, and spent nine months with her, 
during which time he appears to have forgotten everything 
in the luxuries of the Alexandrian court. At length he 
received information that Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, 
had availed himself of the civil war among the Romans for 


508 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


the purpose of extending his kingdom, and that one of the 
Roman legates had been defeated by him. Accordingly, in 
the spring of b. c. 47, he marched through Syria into Pontus, 
and defeated the Asiatics in a decisive battle near Zela. This 
victory is celebrated on account of the laconic despatch which 
Caesar sent to Rome regarding it, “I came, saw, conquered" 
( veni , vidi , vici). Pharnaces lost all his conquests, and was 
soon afterwards murdered by one of his own subjects. 

4. Soon after this he was informed of disturbances at 
Rome, in consequence of which he hastened back. He 
arrived in the city in the autumn of b. c. 47. After the battle 
of Pharsalus, the enthusiasm of the senate and people at Rome 
was so great that the most extraordinary honours and powers 
were conferred upon him, which in reality made him the sole 
ruler of the republic. This was in some measure the result 
of his unexpected mildness towards his conquered enemies. 
During his absence in the East, the partizans of Pompey had 
been active in collecting their scattered forces in Africa, where 
they were supported by Juba, king of Numidia. In Rome 
quarrels had broken out between his own friends M. Antony 
and Dolabella, a profligate young man, and bloody riots had 
taken place in consequence. Caesar being anxious to bring 
the war against the Pompeians to a close, confined himself 
at Rome to conciliatory measures, rewarding his friends by 
increasing the number of praetors, quaestors, aediles, and of 
the members of the priestly colleges, by making liberal pro¬ 
mises to the soldiers, and stirring up their military ambition. 
When all these matters were settled, he set out at the end of 
b. c. 47 for Africa, and very soon afterwards the bloody battle 
of Thapsus, in b. c. 46, decided the fate of the Pompeian party 
for a time ; fifty thousand dead covered the field of battle, and 
many of the survivors made away with themselves; among 
these latter were Pompey’s own father-in-law Metellus Scipio, 
the Numidian king Juba, whose kingdom became a Roman 


BATTLE OF MUNDA. 


509 


province, the warlike Petreius, and the stern Cato, who with 
stoic calmness put an end to his own life at Utica. But the 
two sons of Pompey, Cneius and Sextus, escaped to Spain, 
where somewhat later they stirred up a fresh war. 

5. Caesar was now the sole master of the Roman world, 
and on his return to Rome silenced all fears and appre¬ 
hensions by proclaiming a general amnesty, and assuring the 
senate and people that his great object was the restoration of 
peace and order. He celebrated at once four triumphs, care¬ 
fully avoiding hurting any one’s feelings, and amused both 
soldiers and citizens with every kind of public amusements. 
During his stay at Rome, b. c. 46, Caesar, in his capacity of 
pontifex maximus, introduced his celebrated reform of the 
calendar, which, owing to the ignorance or caprice of the pon¬ 
tiffs, had fallen into such disorder, that it was three months 
in advance of the real time. Caesar remedied the actual 
evil, and made regulations to prevent its recurrence, which 
were observed until, in a. d. 1582, Pope Gregory XIII. 
introduced another reform. While Caesar was thus peace¬ 
fully and usefully employed at Rome, he was informed that 
the sons of Pompey had collected a fresh army in Spain, and 
that the whole of the southern part of that country was in a 
state of insurrection. Towards the end of b. c. 46, he set out 
for Spain, to face his enemies in their last and desperate 
struggle. His difficulties were very great, and it was only 
his undaunted courage and perseverance that enabled him to 
overcome them. The fearful battle of Munda, in the spring 
of b.c. 45, decided the fate of the Pompeian party for ever. 
Cneius, one of the two brothers, was killed after the fight 
while attempting to make his escape; but Sextus was more 
fortunate, and for some years after this led the life of a 
robber and pirate chief. 

6. On his return to Rome Caesar celebrated a triumph over 
the Pompeians, and was received by the senate with the most 


no 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


abject flattery and servility. Distinctions of every kind were 
literally showered upon him; he was called u father of his 
country; ” the month of Quintilis, in which he was born, 
was called after him Julius (July); the powers which he had 
gradually received were conferred on him for life ; he received 
the permanent title of imperator, the consulship for the next 
ten years, and the offices of dictator and praefectus morum for 
life. These and many other powers and distinctions virtu¬ 
ally made Caesar the acknowledged ruler of the Roman world, 
and nothing but the outward signs of absolute sovereignty were 
wanting. But however much he endeavoured, by observ¬ 
ing the ancient forms, to allay the fears of the republicans, and 
however much he tried to pacify the wealthy and noble by 
increasing the number of senators, and to satisfy the soldiers 
by the distribution of lands—however much he did to improve 
the laws and their administration, to raise commerce and 
agriculture, to embellish the city with temples and theatres, 
and to benefit Italy by making roads, canals, and har¬ 
bours, he could not make the people forget that they had 
been free ; it was evident to them that he was not satisfied with 
the substance of sovereign power, but also aimed at the 
outward marks and distinctions of a monarch. There still 
existed many deluded enthusiasts who imagined that it was 
possible to maintain the republic, and that, by preserving 
the ancient forms, the spirit of freedom might be revived. 
Besides these there were many, also, who, although they had 
received from Caesar posts of honour and distinction, yet 
thought themselves slighted and neglected, and secretly plot¬ 
ted against him. The increasing pride of the dictator, and 
his too obvious desire to obtain the title of king, at length 
induced the republicans to make common cause with his per¬ 
sonal enemies. A conspiracy was formed against his life in 
the beginning of b.c. 44; it was headed by M. Junius Bru- 
tus, a genuine though deluded republican, and C. Cassius, 


MURDER OF CAESAR. 


511 


who bore a personal grudge against Caesar. Both had been 
partizans of Pompey, but had nevertheless been raised by 
Caesar to the praetorship, and had been treated by him with 
kindness and confidence; bnt all considerations of a private 
nature were set aside under the specious pretext that the 
liberty of their country had higher claims upon them. The 
p>lan for the murder of Caesar was formed with the greatest 
caution and secrecy. On the ides (the 15th) of March b.c. 44, 
Caesar convened a meeting of the senate in the curia of Pom¬ 
pey, for the purpose of receiving the title of king out of Italy, 
to enable him, under this designation, to undertake a war 
against the Parthians. That day was fixed upon by the 
conspirators for carrying out their design. He was attacked 
at the meeting of the senate, and sank overwhelmed by the 
daggers of his assailants. At first he made an attempt to 
defend himself, but perceiving Brutus among his murderers, 
he exclaimed, “You, too, Brutus?” wrapped himself up in 
his toga, and sank at the base of Pompey’s statue. Thus 
fell the only man that was then both able and willing to save 
Rome from internal war and bloodshed, and whose reign 
might have become the beginning of a happy and prosperous 
era in Roman history. But the cup of suffering for Rome 
was not yet full. 

7. The conspirators soon found to their own cost, that it 
is more easy to destroy than to build up; of the latter, they 
had in fact scarcely thought, and were not a little alarmed 
by the discovery, that the slight enthusiasm produced by the 
murder gave way to hatred and detestation, when the crafty 
M. Antony in his funeral oration over the body of Caesar, set 
forth his great merits and his many excellent qualities, and 
mentioned the liberal bequests and donations which he had 
made in his will to the people. The multitude became in¬ 
furiated, and the murderers were obliged to take to flight. 
Decimus Brutus went to his province of Cisalpine Gaul, and 


512 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


M. Brutus and Cassius proceeded to the East, where provinces 
had previously been assigned to them. After they had gone, 
Antony caused Cisalpine Gaul to be transferred to himself, 
and proceeded at once with an army to Mutina to expel D. 
Brutus, who had taken up his position in that city. The 
senate, being in the meantime stirred up by Cicero, invested C. 
Julius Caesar Octavianus, the adopted son and heir of Caesar, 
who was only nineteen years old, and had come over from 
Apollonia, with the powers of a praetor; and as many of the 
veterans of Antony joined the young avenger of Caesar, 
Octavianus was sent along with the consuls of b. c. 43, A. 
Hirtius and Vibius Pansa, to the north of Italy to prevent 
Antony, who had in the meantime been declared a public 
enemy, from gaining his object. Antony, being defeated in 
this war by the armies of his opponents, fled across the Alps 
into Gaul, where he was favourably received by the governor 
Lepidus. As the two consuls had been killed in the war, 
and the senate conferred the command of its armies on D. 
Brutus, Octavianus, exasperated at the slight, compelled the 
senate to allow him to be elected to the consulship in spite 
of his youth. A law was passed, declaring all the murderers 
of Caesar outlaws, and Octavianus then marched with his 
army to the north. D. Brutus took to flight, and was 
murdered at Aquileia, while Lepidus and Antony, against 
whom the decree of outlawry was repealed, returned to Italy. 

8. A conference then took place between Octavianus, 
Antony, and Lepidus, in the neighbourhood of Bononia, at 
which the three assumed the title of triumvirs for re^ulatin^ 

O CD 

the affairs of the republic (triumviri reipublicae constituendae ), 
and distributed the provinces among themselves. Octavianus 
received Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia, Antony Gaul, and Lepidus 
Spain, and Antony and Octavianus undertook to carry on the war 
against Brutus and Cassius in the East. The triumvirs then, 
to rid themselves of all their enemies and opponents, adopted 


BRUTUS AND CASSIUS. 


513 


the plan of Sulla, and drew up a proscription list, in which 
each entered the names of those specially obnoxious to himself. 
This proscription, ostensibly directed against their political 
opponents, was, in point of fact, a legalised wholesale murder 
of wealthy persons, whose property was in many instances 
the sole reason why their names appeared among the pro¬ 
scribed. The triumvirs entered Rome at the head of their 
armies, compelled the people to sanction their arrangements, 
and then let loose the soldiery upon the devoted victims. 
The most illustrious and patriotic men fell under the strokes 
of the rapacious and reckless soldiers; all the ties of blood 
and of friendship were rent asunder, nothing was sacred, 
and murder was the order of the day. Two thousand equites 
and three hundred senators were massacred, and those who 
could make their escape fled to Brutus and Cassius, or to 
Sextus Pompeius, who had returned from Spain and made 
himself master of Sicily. The great orator Cicero, who had 
looked upon Octavianus as the champion of the republic and 
supported him on all occasions, was one of the many victims 
who fell during this time : he was murdered on the 7 th of 
December b. c. 43, and Antony’s wife Fulvia feasted her eyes 
on the dead features when his head was brought to her. 

9. When the triumvirs bad sufficiently punished Italy by 
murder, confiscation, and extortion, Octavianus and Antony 
sailed over to Greece to make war against Brutus and Cas¬ 
sius. Shortly after quitting Italy, Brutus had gone to his 
province of Macedonia, where he w r as recognised as the rightful 
governor, and where in a short time he was amply provided 
with everything necessary to carry on a war against his 
enemies. Cassius had in the meantime displayed great vigour 
in Syria and Asia Minor; the two republican chiefs were in 
point of fact masters of all the countries to the east of the 
Adriatic, and at a meeting in Sardes they agreed to operate 
together against their common enemies. But while they were 


514 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


preparing themselves, Octavianus and Antony had already 
made themselves masters of Greece, and taken up their quarters 
at Amphipolis. The republicans pitched their camp in the 
neighbourhood of Philippi, and in the first battle Cassius was 
obliged to retreat before Antony, while Brutus succeeded in 
repelling the legions of Octavianus, who is said to have been 
ill on the occasion. Soon after, Cassius, deceived by erroneous 
information, threw himself on his own sword, and when, 
twenty days after the first battle, the triumvirs renewed the 
contest with fresh vigour, Brutus was also defeated, and made 
away with himself. Many other republicans followed his 
example; but most of the soldiers surrendered to the trium¬ 
virs, while others fled to Sext. Pompeius in Sicily. The 
battles of Philippi, which were fought in the autumn of b. c. 
42, were the death-blow of the republic, and Brutus and 
Cassius have often been called u the last of the Romans.” 

10. The conquerors now again divided the empire among 
themselves ; Lepidus obtained Africa, and Antony the eastern 
provinces, while Octavianus returned to Italy to satisfy his 
greedy and rapacious soldiers by the distribution of lands and 
the establishment of military colonies. Antony, intoxicated 
by the incense of the Greeks and the luxuries of Asia, began 
a senseless and voluptuous career in the East. The sums 
he extorted in Asia were lavished upon the coquettish and 
dissolute Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. His wife Fulvia, who 
loved him with all the passion of her passionate nature, scrupled 
at nothing which seemed to her likely to effect his return and 
secure to him the possession of the western world. The 
misery and wretchedness into which thousands of Italians 
were thrown in consequence of the establishment of military 
colonies, afforded a fair pretext for Fulvia and L. Antonius, 
her husband’s brother, to come forward as the protectors of the 
suffering and oppressed. L. Antonius was consul in e. c. 41, 
and proclaiming himself the friend of the poor and distressed, 


SEXT. POMPEIUS. 


515 


he, with Fulvia and others, established themselves at Perusia in 
Etruria, where large numbers of malcontents gathered around 
them. Towards the end of b. c. 41, Octavianus proceeded to 
blockade the rebels with three armies; and when at length 
the besieged began to suffer from famine and found it impos¬ 
sible to escape, L. Antonius capitulated, and Fulvia was set 
free on condition of her quitting Italy; but all the senators 
of Perusia were put to death, and upwards of three hundred 
of its most illustrious citizens were sacrificed on the 15th of 
March b. c. 40 at the altar of Julius Caesar. The ancient 
town of Perusia itself was reduced to a heap of ashes. 
Fulvia went to Greece, where she met Antony, but soon 
after died at Sicyon. 

11. The war of Perusia nearly produced a struggle 
between Antony and Octavianus, for the former actually 
advanced with his fleet to Brundusium and prevailed on Sext. 
Pompeius to co-operate with him; but a reconciliation was 
brought about, and Sext. Pompeius, betrayed by Antony, was 
declared the common enemy of the triumvirs. Pompeius 
now continued his former piratical practices, infesting the 
coasts of Italy and preventing supplies of grain from being 
imported from abroad, in consequence of which Eome was 
often suffering from scarcity of provisions. The people there¬ 
fore complained loudly, demanding of the triumvirs to come 
to some understanding with him. A peace accordingly 
was concluded at Misenum in b. c. 39, in which Pompeius 
obtained proconsular power over Sicily and several other 
provinces. Antony, who ever since the treaty of Brundusium 
had been at Ptome, now married the noble Octavia, sister of 
Octavianus, and then went to Greece, where for a time he 
lived as a private person. Pompeius, who felt himself wronged 
by Antony, did not altogether abstain from piracy, and this 
afforded Octavianus a welcome pretext for undertaking a war 
against him. It was commenced in b. c. 38, and at first the 


516 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


triumvir was not very successful; but in b. c. 36 he appointed 
his friend Agrippa commander-in-chief of the whole fleet. The 
island was then surrounded, but although Agrippa was sup¬ 
ported by the fleets of Antony and Lepidus, no decisive 
impression was made until the great battle of Mylae, in which 
Pompeius was completely defeated. His land army sur¬ 
rendered, and he himself escaped with a few ships to Asia, 
where soon after he was murdered. Lepidus now claimed 
Sicily for himself, but as he was not a man of much influence 
or spirit, Octavianus unceremoniously commanded his soldiers 
to join him, and Lepidus was sent to Eome, wdiere he enjoyed 
the empty honour of chief pontiff until his death in b. c. 12. 

12. Even before the treaty of Brundusium, in b. c. 40, a war 
had broken out with the Parthians, who had made inroads into 
Syria. At first the war against them was conducted success¬ 
fully by Antony’s lieutenants; in b. c. 37, Octavia returned 
to Italy, and Antony hastened to Syria to undertake the com¬ 
mand against the Parthians in person. He had a large army, 
and was allied with Artavasdes, king of Armenia. But 
his plans were ill laid, and the Parthian king Phraates, 
attacking him in Media, nearly annihilated his legions, and 
obtained possession of all his ammunition and provisions. 
Antony himself narrowly escaped the fate of Crassus. After 
having brought this disgrace upon himself and the Eoman 
arms, he returned to Alexandria, where he forgot himself 
and everything else in the sensual pleasures of the court. 
He gave to Cleopatra Coele-Syria, Judaea and Cyprus, to which 
in b.c. 34 he added Armenia, whose king was taken prisoner. 
He even forgot himself so far as to celebrate a triumph at 
Alexandria, and soon after divorced the noble Octavia, who 
had acted with the greatest forbearance towards him, and had 
often prevented a rupture between her brother and her hus¬ 
band. Octavianus and his sister were now in the position of 
the injured party, and all became ashamed of Antony’s con- 


BATTLE OF ACTIUM. 


517 


duct in the East. At last, in b. c. 32, war was declared against 
the queen of Egypt, and in the spring of the following year, 
the fleet of Octavianus, under the able command of Agrippa, 
spread over the whole of the Adriatic, while Octavianus him¬ 
self with his legions landed in Epirus. 

13. Antony, accompanied by Cleopatra, sailed leisurely to 
Corcyra, where his forces were assembled. On the 2d of 
September b. c. 31 the memorable sea-fight off the pro¬ 
montory of Actium in Acarnania took place: its issue was 
at first doubtful, but Cleopatra soon losing courage took 
to flight; Antony followed her, and both together returned 
to Alexandria, leaving their fleet and army to their fate. 
The fleet was soon destroyed by Agrippa, and when the land 
forces found that their commander had abandoned them, they 
surrendered to Octavianus. The town of Nicopolis opposite 
Actium was afterwards built to commemorate this victory, 
and the moderation displayed by Octavianus towards the 
vanquished excited general admiration. Soon after his victory 
Octavianus followed his conquered enemies to Alexandria. 
Cleopatra made an attempt to see whether she could not 
charm her conqueror as she had charmed Caesar and Antony; 
but it was all in vain. Antony being prematurely informed 
of the death of his mistress, threw himself upon his sword, 
b. c. 30, and Cleopatra soon after made away with herself 
by putting a viper to her breast, that she might not be com¬ 
pelled to adorn as a captive the triumph of her conqueror. 
Egypt, where the race of the Ptolemies was now extinct, was 
made a Roman province. In the spring of b. c. 29 Octavianus 
returned to Rome, where the temple of Janus was closed, as a 
sign that peace was restored throughout the empire, of which 
Octavianus was now the sole master. 


518 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE REIGN OF AUGUSTUS. 

1. If we consider the state of political and social morality 
of the Romans at the time, and the fearful convulsions through 
which they had passed ever since the days of Sulla, it must 
be owned that it was a real blessing for the empire to have 
fallen at length under the sway of one who, though neither 
so great nor so noble-minded as Caesar, yet had the desire 
to restore order, peace, and prosperity to his country. On 
the whole it seems that the greater part of the Romans, and 
many even of those who had fought under the banner of the 
republic, had arrived at the conviction that th£ republic was 
irrecoverably gone, and that its restoration was not even 
desirable. Octavianus, however, was very careful in pre¬ 
serving the ancient republican forms, such as the meetings of 
the comitia and of the senate, while, on the other hand, he 
avoided with equal care such titles as “ king,” which had 
always been detested by the Romans, and “ dictator,” which 
had been abolished for ever after the murder of Caesar. As 
far as outward appearance was concerned, Octavianus, not¬ 
withstanding the extraordinary powers conferred upon him, 
was no more than a republican magistrate. The Roman 
populace had come to regard republican freedom with indif¬ 
ference, and were satisfied if plentifully provided with bread 
and amusements (panis et cir censes). 

2. On the return of Octavianus from the East, b. c. 29, 
he was overwhelmed by the adulation and servility of both 
the senate and people. Two years later he received the 
novel title of “Augustus,” that is, “ the Venerable,” which 
was afterwards assumed by all the Roman emperors. To it 


REIGN OF AUGUSTUS. 


519 


was added the title of “ Imperator,” or emperor, for ten years, 
by virtue of which he had the supreme command over all the 
armies, and which was subsequently renewed from time to 
time. In b. c. 23 he was invested with the tribunician 
power for life, whereby his person became sacred and invio¬ 
lable ; at the same time he obtained the tribunician veto, as well 
as the right to convene the senate whenever he pleased. In 
like manner he acquired the office of censor, and proconsular 
power in all the provinces. In the course of a few years he 
thus concentrated in his own person all the powers which had 
formerly belonged to the several republican magistrates; but 
the consulship and the other magistracies were nominally left to 
others, and continued to be looked upon as high honours down 
to the overthrow of the empire. In his capacity of censor 
Augustus directed his attention first to the purification of the 
senate by excluding unworthy members, and reducing its 
number to six hundred. The senate gradually became a sort of 
state council and supreme court of justice for all cases in which 
the majesty of the emperor was violated. Augustus had no 
ministers of state in our sense of the term, but he was assisted 
and supported by a number of able friends, such as Agrippa, 
Maecenas, Valerius Messalla, and Asinius Pollio. 

3. In regard to the internal administration, Augustus be¬ 
stowed particular care upon the safety of life and property in 
the city of Rome, which had before been little better than a den 
of robbers. With this view he divided the city and its suburbs 
into fourteen regions, and the whole of Italy into a number 
of districts or provinces. For himself he established a nume¬ 
rous body-guard of ten praetorian cohorts; three of which 
w r ere stationed in the city, and the rest in different parts of 
Italy, until, in the reign of Tiberius, they were all collected 
in a fortified camp near Rome, called the castra praetoria. 
Augustus also made several useful and necessary regulations 
concerning the administration of the provinces, the number of 


520 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


which then amounted to twenty-five. In b. c. 27, they were 
divided between himself and the senate, that is, into pro - 
vinciae senatoriae or populi , and provinciae Caesareae —the 
emperor reserving for himself those which were not completely 
subdued, and required the presence of a military force, and for 
these the emperor himself appointed the governors. Under 
the control of Augustus the administration of the provinces was 
conducted much more fairly and honourably than had been 
the case during the last century of the republic. The two 
classes of the provinces also rendered necessary a division of 
the revenues derived from them ; the revenues of the senato¬ 
rial provinces went into the aerctrium or state treasury, while 
those obtained from the imperial provinces went into the 
treasury of the emperor, called the focus . 

4. Augustus also bestowed great attention upon the moral 
and social improvement of his people, by encouraging mar¬ 
riage and punishing adultery, and nothing was neglected 
which tended to increase the material prosperity of his sub¬ 
jects. He hoped much, also, from a revival of the ancient 
piety and religious worship of the Romans ; but these and 
many other things are of such a nature that laws, however 
well meant, must remain inefficient so long as the spirit of 
the people is not improved; and this can be the work only 
of time and long perseverance. Notwithstanding the mildness 
with which Augustus ruled, and the anxiety he displayed to 
conceal the fact that he was the real sovereign, conspiracies 
against his life broke out from time to time; and these evidences 
of secret enemies intimidated him so much, that during the 
latter part of his reign he always took precaution against any 
sudden attack. 

5. Augustus, throughout his long reign, was more con¬ 
cerned about securing the frontiers of his vast empire than 
about making additional conquests. In b. c. 27, he him¬ 
self went through Gaul to the north of Spain, for the pur- 


WARS UNDER AUGUSTUS. 


521 


pose of subduing the Astures and Cantabri, and making the 
Atlantic the boundary of the empire in the west. For three 
years he carried on war against them, and when at length, in 
b. c. 24, those brave tribes submitted, and gave hostages, 
he returned to Rome; but soon after the Cantabri again 
revolted, and were finally subdued by Agrippa, in b. c. 
19. About the same time iElius Gallus, the first governor 
of Egypt, made an unsuccessful expedition into Arabia; 
but in Africa the frontier was secured by victories over 
fhe Ethiopians and Garamantes. In b. c. 20 the Parthians, 
who had until then been the most formidable enemies 
of Rome in the East, thought it advisable to return to 
Augustus the standards which had fallen into their hands 
during the wars of Crassus and Antony. This event 
filled every Roman with joy. The existence of numerous 
independent tribes in the Raetian and Graian Alps, and' in 
Yindelicia and Noricum, was thought to be incompatible with 
the safety and peace of Italy; war accordingly was waged 
against them in b. c. 25, and was continued for many years, 
until the Alpine tribes were completely subdued in b. c. 13. 
But the war against them stirred up commotions in Gaul and 
in the south of Germany. Some German tribes even crossed 
the Rhine and invaded Gaul, an event which created so much 
alarm at Rome, that Augustus himself, in b. c. 16, went to 
Gaul for the purpose of securing its eastern frontier. But 
after an absence of three years, he returned, leaving the com¬ 
mand of the troops on the Rhine to his step-son Drusus, who 
with his brother Tiberius had till then been conducting the 
war against the Alpine tribes. 

6. The appointment of Drusus marks the commencement 
of a series of dangerous wars with the Germans on the east 
of the Rhine, the object of which was not so much to gain a 
permanent footing in Germany as to crush that nation, which 
was thought to be a most dangerous neighbour of Gaul. 


522 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


Germany itself was for the most part a wild and uncultivated 
country, covered with immense forests and marshes, and hold¬ 
ing out little or no temptation to a conqueror. The southern 
parts about the Danube, perhaps as far as the Maine, were 
inhabited by Celtic nations; the rest, with the exception of 
some portions in the north-east, was inhabited by a vast 
number of German tribes, which led a free and roving life, 
and were unable to bear the yoke of foreign rulers. But their 
great misfortune then, as ever after, was their incessant 
quarrels and wars with one another, which greatly facili¬ 
tated the work of conquest. Drusus, when he undertook the 
command in b. c. 12, at once resolved to conquer the part of 
Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe. From Mayence 
he made several successful expeditions against the Sigambri, 
Usipetes, Bructeri, Chatti, and others, and by the establish¬ 
ment of the fortress of Aliso near the sources of the Lippe, he 
endeavoured to secure his conquests. In b. c. 9 he advanced 
as far as the Elbe; but want of provisions obliged him to 
return ; on his journey he fell from his horse, and died thirty 
days later in consequence of the injury he received. 

7. His brother Tiberius, who until then had been conduct¬ 
ing a war in Dalmatia and Pannonia, succeeded to the command 
of his forces, and in b. c. 8 crossed the Rhine to complete wdiat 
his brother had commenced. For two years he continued the 
war with great skill and valour, though not always with that 
honesty which becomes a great general; but he was unable 
completely to subdue the west of Germany. In b. c. 6 he 
returned to Rome, and was succeeded by Domitius Aheno- 
barbus, a bold but at the same time a prudent man, who 
endeavoured to push his conquests even beyond the Elbe. 
After various undertakings, none of which was crowned with 
permanent success, Tiberius, in a. d. 4, resumed the command 
of the legions on the Rhine, and by victories on the field 
of battle, as well as by prudent negotiations, succeeded in 


DEFEAT OF VARUS. 


525 


subduing the country between tbe Rhine and the Weser, 
which in a. d. 5 was constituted as a Eoman province. 
Peace being thus restored in that part of Germany, he medi¬ 
tated a war against Maroboduus, a powerful king of the Mar- 
comanni, in the south-east of Germany; but the tidings of 
a great insurrection which had broken out in Pannonia and 
Dalmatia, obliged him to conclude peace with the king and 
direct his forces against the rebels. This war lasted for two 
years, and obliged the Romans, who were at first unsuccessful, 
to make the greatest efforts. At length in a. d. 9 the fall of 
the fortress of Anderion decided the fate of the insurgents, who 
now again submitted to Rome; but their country, between 
the Danube and the Adriatic, had been fearfully ravaged 
during the war. 

8. In the meantime the work of Romanising western Ger¬ 
many was commencing : many Germans served in the Roman 
armies, and young nobles delighted in the distinctions with 
which they w r ere honoured by their conquerors; but the ava¬ 
rice and rapacity of the Roman governor Quintilius Varus, 
combined with his haughty and insolent manners, roused the 
aversion and hatred of the barbarians. A conspiracy accord¬ 
ingly was formed against him by Arminius, a young Cheruscan 
chief, who had served among the Romans, and was well 
acquainted with their mode of warfare. The Cheruscans 
were joined by several other tribes. Segestes, the father-in- 
law of Arminius, who bore him a grudge, informed Varus 
of the dangerous plot; but in vain: in a. d. 9, the Roman 
governor set out against some rebels whose only object was 
to draw him into a snare. He marched heedlessly with three 
legions, many auxiliaries, and a quantity of baggage, through 
the forest of Teutoburg, and in a battle during three very 
stormy days, he suffered so complete a defeat that the ground 
far and wide was covered with the dead bodies of the Romans; 
all those who fell into the hands of the conquerors were made 


524 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


slaves; the Eoman standards were lost, and Varns, in despair, 
put an end to his own life. The Germans had been com¬ 
manded by Arminius, who was looked upon in after times 
as the great deliverer of his country from the yoke of the 
Romans. Augustus, on receiving intelligence of this disaster, 
is said to have been seized with rage and despair. As the 
fortress of Aliso had been taken and destroyed by the barba¬ 
rians, the Romans found it impossible to maintain themselves 
on the eastern bank of the Rhine, and henceforth confined 
themselves to protecting the left bank and compelling the 
Germans to keep to their own side of the river. 

9. In this manner the reign of Augustus came to its close. 
The most eventful occurrence which marks it is the birth of 
our Lord Jesus Christ at Bethlehem in Judaea. His birth is 
the beginning of the Christian era, and the date of the present 
year marks the number supposed to have elapsed since his 
birth; but more accurate chronological calculations have 
shown that the birth of Christ must be dated four or five 
years before the commencement of the vulgar era. The age 
of Augustus, or, more correctly, the period from the death of 
Sulla to that of Augustus, must be regarded as the golden 
age of Roman literature. The Latin language had then 
reached its highest development, and the greatest poets, 
orators, and historians that Rome produced belong to that 
memorable period, the study of which is of the highest inte¬ 
rest also, because in it was first formed and consolidated that 
system of government and administration which has in a great 
measure determined the character of our modern civilisation. 

10. The happiness of Augustus was greatly disturbed 
during his later years by domestic misfortunes and afflictions. 
His promising grandsons, Caius and Lucius Caesar, the sons 
of his daughter Julia by his friend Agrippa, died prematurely 
in their youth, not without a suspicion of their having been 
poisoned by his ambitious wife Livia, who was anxious to 


REIGN OF TIBERIUS. 


525 


secure the succession to Tiberius, her own son by her former 
husband. Augustus’ daughter Julia, herself, a talented but 
licentious woman, caused her father so much grief by her 
dissolute life, that in the end he found it necessary to banish 
her. A posthumous son of Agrippa by the same Julia, 
Agrippa Postumus, died by the hand of a hired assassin in a 
distant island, to which he had been banished in order that 
he might not put forward any claims against Tiberius. This 
murder was perpetrated immediately after the death of 
Augustus, which took place on the 19th of August a. d. 14, at 
Nolain Campania, whither he had gone to restore his enfeebled 
health. He was succeeded without any difficulty by Tiberius, 
his step-son, who owed his elevation to the cunning contrivances 
of his mother Livia. The imperial dignity remained in the 
same family until Hero, who was the last of the line, for after 
his time the imperial throne was generally filled by the choice 
of the soldiery. 


CHAPTER XV. 

THE SUCCESSORS OF AUGUSTUS DOWN TO THE DEATH OF NERO. 

1. In his earlier days Tiberius had acquired great renown 
for the ability with which he had conducted the various wars 
in the East, in Pannonia and on the Rhine ; but his temper had 
been soured, and after his accession he seemed to have become 
quite a different man. He was a great proficient in dissimu¬ 
lation, and at first succeeded for a time in concealing the 
viciousness of his character and disposition; but after the 
year A. d. 20, when his friend iElius Seianus gained para¬ 
mount influence over him, the despot committed a series of 
most revolting atrocities. It was on the advice of Seianus that 



526 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


in A. d. 23 the praetorian cohorts received their stationary 
camp near Eome, whereby the government was at once changed 
into a military despotism, for those praetorians became the ever 
ready tools of tyranny, and in the course of time usurped the 
power of electing and deposing emperors at their pleasure. 
Augustus had allowed the people to assemble in their comitia, 
and even to pass laws in the ancient form, but Tiberius 
abolished this last shadow of republican freedom, and trans¬ 
ferred the functions of the assembled people to the senate, 
which degraded itself by its servile flattery, and readiness to 
do or sanction deeds which the despot himself shrunk from 
attempting. The trial of cases of high treason against the 
person of the emperor became one of the duties of the senate, 
which was thus obliged to inflict punishment on persons whom 
Tiberius himself could scarcely have ventured to condemn. 
Every one was declared guilty of high treason who either by 
speech, deed, or writing, should offend the emperor. This 
measure called into existence a host of well-paid crafty spies 
and informers, who crushed and stifled every honest expres¬ 
sion of opinion, and extinguished the last spark of freedom 
and independence, while, on the other hand, they increased 
the tyrant’s fears and cruelty. Seianus, whose character 
very much resembled that of his master, had the executive 
in his own hands, while Tiberius abandoned himself to the 
basest sensual lusts; and in order to be able to indulge 
them more freely and unrestrainedly, he withdrew in a. d. 26 
from Eome, and finally took up his abode in the island of 
Capreae, in the bay of Naples. There he gave himself up to 
the grossest sensuality, and took a delight in torturing the 
unfortunate victims of his lust. This period of his absence 
from Eome was the most frightful of his frightful reign, for 
Seianus now ruled without restraint, endeavouring to ex¬ 
terminate the family of his sovereign, and thus to secure 
the succession to himself He had already despatched by 


REIGN OF TIBERIUS. 


527 


poison Drusus, the only son of Tiberius. This had happened 
in a. d. 23; six years later several other members of the 
imperial family, and among them Agrippina and her three 
sons, were got rid of by being sent into exile, and were after¬ 
wards killed by starvation or otherwise ; Caius (afterwards the 
emperor Caligula), the youngest of the sons of Agrippina and 
Germanicus, was the only one that escaped. At length, 
when all obstacles were removed, Seianus sued for the hand 
of the widow of Drusus, whom he himself had poisoned. 
When, notwithstanding his great precaution, this was reported 
to Tiberius, the emperor addressed a letter to the senate, in 
which he accused his minister of high treason, and demanded 
his execution. The order was immediately and joyfully 
obeyed, a. d. 31, and Tiberius now took vengeance on all the 
friends and relations of Seianus. Macro, the successor of 
Seianus, was scarcely better than his predecessor; and Tiberius, 
by his experience of the past, became still more distrustful 
and cruel than before. His debauches had destroyed his 
health, and he appears to have felt his end approaching. But 
carefully concealing his condition, he resolved to return to 
Borne. In the meantime Macro, in conjunction with Caius (Ca¬ 
ligula), had formed the design of getting rid of the aged tyrant. 
At a villa near Misenum, Tiberius fell into a deathlike state 
of lethargy, which induced some persons of his suite to pro¬ 
claim Caligula, who happened to be with his uncle, as his 
successor. But Tiberius recovered, and as both Macro and 
Caligula had reason to fear his vengeance, they caused him to 
be suffocated between beds and pillows, a. d. 37, when he had 
attained his seventy-eighth year. 

2. The most memorable event in the external history of the 
reign of Tiberius is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, according to 
the common chronology, in a. d. 33. We may also mention a 
fearful earthquake, by which many flourishing cities in Asia 
were reduced to heaps of ruins; and the great catastrophe at 


528 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


Fidenae, where a temporary wooden amphitheatre fell during a 
show of gladiators, which had drawn together vast multitudes 
from Eome and other neighbouring towns; no less than fifty 
thousand persons were killed or seriously hurt on that occasion. 
The last great event we shall here notice, the war against the 
Germans, was in point of time the first, for in the very year in 
which Tiberius obtained the imperial dignity, a. d. 14, a great 
insurrection broke out among the legions on the Rhine and in 
Pannonia. Germanicus, the noble son of Drusus, commanding 
on the Rhine, was generous enough to quiet the soldiers, who 
demanded that he should assume the imperial dignity instead 
of Tiberius. The revolt in Pannonia was quelled by prudent 
concessions on the part of Tiberius. Germanicus after 
appeasing. his troops, crossed the Rhine to wipe off the stain 
cast on the Roman name under the bad management of 
Varus; he penetrated into, and ravaged, the country of the 
Chatti, buried the remains of the Romans he found in the 
Teutoburg forest, and made Thusnelda, Arminius’ wife, his 
captive, she having been betrayed into his hands by her own 
father Segestes, who had always been well disposed towards 
the Romans. In consequence of this, Arminius exerted all 
his energy to rouse the Cheruscans and the neighbouring 
tribes to a vigorous resistance against the common enemy. 
A. Caecina, the legate of Germanicus, was brought into im¬ 
minent danger; but owing to the superior tactics of the 
Romans and the prudence of Germanicus, the Germans were 
defeated in two battles. Nevertheless, however, the dominion 
of Rome could not be firmly and permanently re-established on 
the eastern bank of the Rhine. For when, in a. d. 16, Ger¬ 
manicus was recalled by Tiberius, who looked with jealousy 
upon his success and popularity, the Germans were for a time 
left without any further molestation. Germanicus was sent 
to the East, and died at Antioch in a. d. 19, having probably 
been poisoned by Piso, the governor of Syria. About this 


CALIGULA. 


529 


time Tiberius, or rather bis son Drusus, undertook an expe¬ 
dition against Maroboduus, king of the Marcomanni. But 
to facilitate the undertaking, another German tribe was 
induced to attack Maroboduus in another quarter. As the 
king’s capital was taken by the enemy, he sought the 
assistance of the Romans, whom he did not suspect of hostile 
intentions ; but Tiberius ordered him to renounce his kingdom, 
and spend the remainder of his life at Ravenna. Catualda, 
the conqueror of Maroboduus, soon after experienced the same 
fate, for being driven from his kingdom, he sought refuge with 
the Romans, and was ordered to take up his residence at 
Forum Julium, in the south of Gaul. Arminius, the deliverer 
of Germany, was afterwards murdered by his own ungrateful 
countrymen. These occurrences and insurrections in Gaul 
and Africa, which were quelled without much difficulty, are 
the only important events in the Roman empire during the 
reign of Tiberius. 

3. Tiberius, as we have already noticed, was succeeded 
by Caius, commonly called Caligula, who reigned from a. d. 
37 till 41. He w r as the son of the noble-minded Germanicus 
by Agrippina, and as he resembled his father in appearance, 
every one hoped that he had also inherited his father’s 
virtues. During the first eight months, these hopes seemed 
to be realised, when he was suddenly taken ill. He did 
indeed recover his bodily health, but in his conduct he was 
completely altered. The vicious disposition, which until 
then had been carefully concealed, now burst forth without 
scruple or restraint, and there can be little doubt that he 
was labouring under insanity. Without entering into the 
disgusting details of his reign, we shall briefly sum up the 
most prominent features of his character. He was a blood¬ 
thirsty tyrant, who took a delight in signing death-warrants 
and witnessing the agonies of his victims; a senseless squanderer 

of the public treasures, which he spent upon the gratification of 

2 M 


530 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


his lusts and the erection of absurd buildings ; a vain boaster, 
who celebrated triumphs over the Germans and Britons, whom 
he had never encountered on the field of battle, and ordered 
himself to be worshipped as a god; a glutton, who by his 
excesses drained the provinces as well as the treasury; and a 
low and vulgar sensualist whose favourite companions were 
actors, gladiators, and prostitutes. A conspiracy was formed 
against this monster as early as b. c. 39, but it was discovered 
and its authors were put to death: soon after another was 
formed by some officers of the praetorian guards, and in A. d. 41 
he was murdered in his own palace while attending the rehearsal 
of some actors. His wife and daughters were likewise put to 
death. During the tumult the murderers dragged forth 
Tiberius Claudius, who from fear had concealed himself, and 
proclaimed him emperor. 

4. Claudius was a brother of Germanicus, and a son of 
Drusus and Antonia. His life had been spared during the reigns 
of Tiberius and Caligula, merely because he was despised and 
looked upon as an idiot, who was not likely ever to claim the 
succession. When he ascended the throne, he had reached 
the age of fifty-one years. The manner in which he had been 
treated by his own family had intimidated him and made him 
cowardly.' His favourite pursuits had been history and anti¬ 
quities, and he himself wrote a history of his own times, 
memoirs of his own life, and, in the Greek language, histories 
of Carthage and Etruria. While he occupied himself with 
these pursuits, his freedmen and favourites, Narcissus 
Pallas, Callistus, and others governed the empire, exercising 
unlimited influence over him, and his dissolute wife Messa- 
lina scorned every law of decency and morality. At the 
suggestion of these unworthy advisers, Claudius put to death 
the noblest men of the time, and the licentiousness of the 
court destroyed the last vestiges of virtue among the higher 
classes, especially among females. Messalina went so far 


REIGN OF CLAUDIUS. 


531 


in her shamelessness, as publicly to solemnise her marriage 
with a handsome young Roman, although she was lawfully 
married to Claudius. This step at length opened the eyes 
of the infatuated emperor, and, terrified by the prospect of 
greater dangers, he ordered Messalina to be put to death, 
and married his niece, the beautiful and talented, but licen¬ 
tious and ambitious Agrippina. She was anxious to get rid 
of his children by his former wife, and to secure the suc¬ 
cession to Nero her own son, by her former husband, Domitius 
Ahenobarbus. When her schemes were discovered, and the 
voluptuous emperor was on the point of thwarting her, she 
anticipated him by'causing him to be poisoned, in the month 
of October, a. d. 54. The reign of Claudius, so far as he was 
not under the influence of women and freedmen, was mild 
and popular. He was very fond of building, and undertook 
and completed some very important works: he deepened 
and fortified the port of Ostia, and drained the Fucine lake 
by constructing an immense tunnel, at which thirty thou¬ 
sand men are said to have been at work for eleven years, 
and which led the waters of the lake into the river Liris. In 
spite of the moral degeneracy of the times, the Roman arms 
were victorious abroad under Claudius and his successors. In 
a. d. 50, a successful war was commenced against the Parthians, 
v/ho attempted to conquer Armenia. In Germany, quarrels 
arose after the death of Arminius, which led to Claudius 
appointing Italicus, a nephew of Arminius, king of the Che- 
ruscans, and considerably weakened the German tribes, so 
that the whole of western Germany might again have become 
a Roman province, had not Claudius recalled his victorious 
general Corbulo, and ordered him to confine himself to 
defending the western banks of the Rhine. The reign of 
Claudius is also remarkable as the period in which the Romans 
first made permanent conquests in Britain. On the invita¬ 
tion of an exiled British chief, a Roman army, in a. d. 43, 


532 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


invaded the island. Claudius himself visited it for a short 
time, but left the management of the war to his lieutenants, 
who continued it for nine years. Vespasian and his son Titus 
acquired their first military laurels in this war, and the south¬ 
eastern part of Britain, which was finally conquered in a. d. 
51, was constituted a Boman province. 

5. Agrippina succeeded in her plan of securing the succes¬ 
sion to her son Nero, and soon after the murder of Claudius, the 
young man, only seventeen years old, was proclaimed emperor. 
He had been educated by the philosopher Seneca, and Burrus, 
an officer of the praetorian guards, and was possessed of con¬ 
siderable talent, but the influence of the corrupt and licentious 
court, the obsequiousness of the senate, and the servility of the 
people, could not but ultimately produce their effects. During 
the first five years of his reign, however, Seneca and Burrus 
so far succeeded in controlling his vicious propensities, that 
this period, compared with that which followed, appeared to 
the Romans as a most happy time. Things assumed a diffe¬ 
rent aspect, when Nero began to quarrel with his ambitious 
mother, who interfered in the government, and even threatened 
to raise Britannicus, the son of Claudius, to the throne. He 
now in rapid succession murdered Britannicus and his own 
mother, whom he intended to drown by means of a boat 
constructed in such a manner that it went to pieces when on 
the waters ; but as she saved herself by swimming, he ordered 
her to be assassinated, and this deed was not disapproved of by 
Seneca and Burrus. His mistresses Acte and Poppaea Sabina 
led him from one crime to another, and when Burrus was re¬ 
moved from the court, a. d. 62, Nero threw off all restraint: 
he banished his wife Octavia to the island of Pandataria, 
where she was soon afterwards murdered, and then married 
the adulterous Poppaea Sabina. Two years later, a fearful 
conflagration broke out at Rome, which lasted for six days, 
and during which the greater part of the city was reduced to 


REJGN OF NERO. 


533 


ashes. It is said that this fire was the work of Nero, who 
was anxious to have a vivid representation of the burning of 
Troy. The emperor, however, charged the Christians, who 
as yet formed an obscure sect, with having caused the con¬ 
flagration, and instituted a cruel persecution against them, in 
which the apostles Peter and Paul are said to have perished. 
The magnificent restoration of the city, and the building of 
Nero’s golden house on the Palatine hill increased the oppres¬ 
sive character of his rule, though the populace was kept in 
good humour by being fed and amused with the plunder and 
spoils of the provinces. 

6. In a. d. 65, a formidable conspiracy was formed by 
Calpurnius Piso, but it was discovered, and Piso himself, the 
poet Lucan, and a great many others, had to pay for the 
attempt with their lives. Seneca, who was also suspected of 
having been an accomplice, died by opening his own veins. 
His next victims were his own wife Poppaea Sabina, wdiom 
be killed in a brutal fit of passion, and Antonia, a daughter 
of Claudius, whom he murdered because she refused to marry 
him. Virtue in whatever form it appeared now became an 
object of the tyrant’s fear and hatred. In a. d. 67, Nero went 
to Greece to take part as a player on the lyre in the great 
games at Olympia and on the Isthmus, and signalised himself 
by the grossest follies and cruelties. In the following year, 
soon after his return, an insurrection, headed by Julius Vindex, 
broke out in Gaul, on account of the fearful oppression to 
■which that country had been subjected. Vindex offered the 
sovereignty to Servius Galba, governor of Spain, who was at 
once proclaimed emperor by his soldiers. But Rufus, the 
governor of southern Germany, marched into Gaul against 
Vindex, and although the two appear to have come to an 
amicable arrangement, Vindex by some mistake was murdered. 
The praetorians at Rome were soon induced likewise to 
proclaim Servius Galba, whereupon Nero, abandoned by 


534 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


every one, took to flight, and on being discovered, inflicted 
a wound on himself, in consequence of which he died, in June 
a. d. 68. With him the house of the Claudii or of Augustus 
became extinct, and henceforth the praetorian guards, and 
sometimes the legions in the provinces, assumed the right of 
electing the emperor, who generally obtained the sanction of 
the senate, which, however, was a mere matter of form. 

7. In the meantime the Parthians in the East had suc¬ 
ceeded in making themselves masters of Armenia. In a. d. 
54, Domitius Corbulo, one of the ablest generals of the 
time, was sent against them, and in a long protracted war 
recovered the whole of Armenia ; his successor, however, was 
unable to maintain his ground, and Tiridates, a brother of 
the Parthian king, in a. d. 66 again ascended the throne of 
Armenia. Germany was tolerably quiet during the reign of 
Nero, but in Britain an alarming insurrection broke out in 
a. d„ 61, in consequence of the fearful rapacity of the Eoman 
governor. During his absence on an expedition against the 
island of Mona, the Britons under their queen Boadicea 
took up arms, and succeeded in destroying a w r hole Roman 
legion and several colonies. But the governor Paulinus 
speedily returned and defeated them in a great battle, in 
which eighty thousand of them are said to have been slain. 
Boadicea put an end to her own life, and peace was concluded 
with the Britons. During Nero's stay in Greece, the Jew r s 
also rose in open rebellion against their oppressors, and after 
the first defeat of the Roman army by them, the emperor gave 
the command to Vespasian, who had already greatly distin¬ 
guished himself by extending the Roman dominion in Britain. 


535 


CHAPTER XVI. 

FROM THE DEATH OF NERO TO THAT OF DOMITIAN. 

1. On learning that he had been proclaimed by the prae¬ 
torians, and that the choice was sanctioned by the senate, 
Servius Galba hastened to Rome, accompanied by Salvius Otho, 
the governor of Lusitania. He was the first emperor that was 
raised to the throne by the soldiery, and they expected that he 
would be particularly liberal towards them. In this hope they 
were disappointed, and as, moreover, he attempted to restore 
discipline among them, and was also guilty of some arbitrary 
proceedings, to which he was led by his freedmen, who had 
entire control over him, Salvius Otho formed a conspiracy 
against him, and Galba was murdered while crossing the 
Forum, in January a. d. 69, at the advanced age of seventy- 
three, and after a reign of scarcely eight months. His adopted 
son Piso Licinianus, who was to have been his successor, and 
whose adoption had offended Otho, was likewise murdered. 

2. The praetorians now proclaimed Otho emperor, and 
the servile senate sanctioned their choice. Otho had been 
the contemptible husband of Poppaea Sabina before her mar¬ 
riage with Hero; but he commenced his reign by taking to 
account some of the persons who had been most conspicuous 
under Hero. He had, however, scarcely entered on his 
duties, when he received tidings that the legions stationed on 
the Rhine had proclaimed Vitellius, their own commander, 
emperor. The latter immediately sent an army across the 
Alps, and in a great battle near Bedriacum gained a decisive 
victory over Otho, who a few days later made away with 
himself in despair, in April a. d. 69. Otho’s army surren- 


536 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


dered to VitelliuSj who was now the undisputed sovereign of 
the empire. He was a vulgar glutton, who had spent all his 
life in coarse sensual pleasures. He took no interest in the 
duties of his station, allowed the praetorians to act as they 
pleased with impunity, and distinguished himself only by 
extorting money to satisfy his low appetites. This con¬ 
duct aroused general indignation against him, and the legions 
in Syria, Moesia, and Pannonia, renounced their allegiance; 
during these insurrections Flavius Yespasianus, who was 
successfully carrying on the war against the Jews, was pro¬ 
claimed emperor. Being supported by the governors of 
several other provinces, and leaving the continuation of the 
siege of Jerusalem to his son Titus, he at once prepared 
for war against Vitellius. The hostile armies met in the 
north of Italy, and Antonins Primus, a staunch supporter 
of Vespasian, who had come with an army across the Alps, 
defeated Vitellius near Bedriacum, and the town of Cremona 
was completely ravaged for its attachment to him. Vitellius 
was now forsaken by all parties except the praetorians and 
the Roman populace. When the hostile army arrived at 
Rome a frightful massacre took place in the streets of the 
city. Sabinus, a brother of Vespasian, who had thrown 
himself into the Capitol, was taken and murdered by the 
partizans of Vitellius, and the magnificent Capitoline temple 
was destroyed by fire. At length the praetorian camp in 
which Vitellius had taken refuge fell into the hands of the 
enemy, and the emperor being dragged forth was cruelly 
murdered in December a. d. 69, after a reign of scarcely 
eight months. 

3. While these things were going on in Italy, Vespasian 
was still at Alexandria in Egypt, and the affairs at Rome 
were managed by his son Domitian, and Mucianus, the late 
governor of Syria. The new emperor himself did not arrive 
in Rome until a.d. 70, when he found the praetorians com- 


itEIGN CF VESPASIAN. 


537 


pletely subdued. All the successors of Augustus had been 
cruel tyrants or contemptible imbeciles. ‘Vespasian was a 
man of quite a different character, and the very ruler whom 
Rome required at the time; he may be called the true 
renovator of the state. Immediately after his arrival at 
Rome he set about restoring discipline among the troops 
and the praetorians, excluded unworthy men from the senate, 
watched over the administration of justice, suppressed the 
detestable class of informers, stopped the trials for high treason 
against the person of the emperor, and economised the finances 
of the empire by a wise regulation of the taxes and tolls, though 
he was not niggardly when the public good or the embellish¬ 
ment of the city required it. He spent enormous sums upon 
the rebuilding of the Capitoline temple, upon the construc¬ 
tion of the great amphitheatre called the Colosseum, which 
even in its present dilapidated state excites the wonder and 
admiration of all travellers, and upon the building of the 
temple of Peace. By his own example he endeavoured to 
put an end to the profligacy of the higher orders, and gave to 
the empire a greater degree of unity and compactness than it 
had hitherto possessed, by raising the most illustrious men 
from the provinces to the places which became vacant in the 
senate, so that Italy virtually ceased to be the exclusive 
mistress of the world. Vespasian was what we may call a 
plain, practical man ; he had a great aversion not only to 
every kind of luxury, but also to the numerous philosophers 
and astrologers who then resided at Rome, and whom in a.d. 
74 he expelled from the city. He hated the Christians and 
republicans; the former he confounded with the Jews, and 
the latter, who were found principally among the Stoic philo¬ 
sophers, he regarded as foolish and audacious speculators. 
Hence the noble Helvidius Priscus, who, like his father- 
in-law Paetus Thrasea, was a great Stoic and republican, 
and had often been troublesome to the emperor by his 


538 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


opposition in tlie senate, was first exiled and then put to 
death. 

4. Among the most remarkable occurrences in the history 
of the empire during Vespasian’s reign is the capture of Jeru¬ 
salem by his son Titus in a.d. 70. Judaea had for many 
years been governed by Roman procuratores , who not only 
oppressed the people, but by their insolence and scorn 
wounded their deepest feelings. Gessius Floras, who had 
been appointed procurator by Nero, combining cruelty with 
the ordinary qualities of a Roman governor, drove the Jews, 
who were also urged on by a strong national party, into 
open rebellion, and the Romans were compelled to evacuate 
Jerusalem. But the victorious party now established a reign 
of terror in the city, during which many of the moderate 
party and the Roman prisoners were murdered. Vespasian 
then, a. d. 67, undertook the war against the Jews with a 
powerful army. Being misguided by their own leaders, 
distracted by internal dissensions, and mortally hated by the 
Romans, they fought with the courage of despair against 
the legions. After the fall of the strong fortress of Jota- 
pata, and a fearful defeat in which forty thousand Jews 
are said to have been killed, they were obliged to confine 
themselves to the defence of their city of Jerusalem, which, 
after Vespasian’s elevation to the sovereignty of the empire, 
was besieged by his son Titus. The city being over¬ 
crowded with men from all parts, suffered severely from 
famine, and the distress was increased by epidemic diseases 
and furious party feuds. It was in vain that Titus offered to 
spare the Jews, if they would lay down their arms; rage 
against their enemies and a blind, confidence in the speedy 
help of Jehovah goaded them on to the last extremity. 
When at length the city was taken, the Jews defended them¬ 
selves in the Temple, until that magnificent and venerable 
building, too, became a prey to the flames on the 2d of Septem- 


REIGN OF VESPASIAN AND TITUS. 


539 


ber A. d. 70. The city was then destroyed, and upwards of a 
million of Jews are said to have perished. They lost their 
independence for ever, and being forbidden to rebuild their 
city, scattered over the whole of the Eoman empire, where 
they were subject to the payment of an annual tax. The 
triumphal arch, afterwards erected by Titus at Rome, still 
bears witness to that memorable event. 

5. Even before Vespasian's arrival at Rome, a great 
insurrection, headed by Claudius Civilis, had broken out 
among the Batavi, whose example was speedily followed by 
the Frisians and some Gallic tribes ; but owing to the energy 
of Petilius Cerealis, they were defeated one after another, and 
compelled to sue for peace, a.d. 70. In the following year 
Cerealis obtained the administration of Britain, and was 
accompanied thither by Agricola, the father-in-law of the 
great historian Tacitus, by whom we have a life of him. In 
a. d. 77 Agricola was himself appointed governor of Britain, a 
post which he filled until a. d. 85, to his own honour and 
that of his countrymen. During this period he conquered 
not only all England but the south of Scotland as far as the 
Firths of Clyde and Forth. He carried his victories even 
to the Highlands, and explored the coasts of the country, 
though he was unable to establish the Roman dominion beyond 
the Forth. 

6. The reign of Vespasian was extremely beneficial to the 
empire, although he did things which cannot be called other¬ 
wise than cruel. Towards the end of his life a conspiracy 
was formed against him ; but it was discovered and its authors 
were put to death. Soon afterwards he w r as taken ill, and 
having died on the 23d of June a. d. 79, at the age of seventy, 
was succeeded by his son Titus, who had latterly governed 
the empire in conjunction with his father. His short reign 
lasted only till the middle of September a. d. 81, and at first 
considerable apprehension prevailed at Rome, as he had been 


540 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


previously guilty of several acts of cruelty. But after his 
accession he showed himself so kind and benevolent as to 
obtain and deserve the title of “ the love and delight of man¬ 
kind.” The calamities which visited several parts of the 
empire during his brief reign afforded him excellent oppor¬ 
tunities for displaying his kindly benevolence. In the month 
of August a. d. 79, a fearful eruption of mount Vesuvius, the 
first recorded in history, destroyed and buried under burning 
lava and ashes the towns of Herculaneum, Pompeii, and 
Stabiae. Pliny the elder, who ventured too near to satisfy 
his curiosity, lost his life; the whole eruption has been 
minutely described by his nephew, the younger Pliny, in two 
letters addressed to Tacitus the historian. Portions of these 
buried towns which have been laid open in modern times, 
furnish the most interesting information on antiquities and 
ancient art. It is said that the emperor Titus spent nearly 
his whole property in relieving the sufferers who survived the 
terrible catastrophe. In a. d. 80 a fire broke out at Rome, 
which raged for three days, destroying the finest parts of 
the city; and no sooner had this misfortune passed away, 
than a fearful pestilence came, which carried off thousands 
of people in all parts of Italy. The last year of Titus’ reign 
is marked by the inauguration of the Colosseum, which had 
been commenced by his father, and by the building of the 
Thermae, which bear his name. He died in the same villa 
in which Vespasian had breathed his last, in the country of 
the Sabines; and all the Romans mourned over his death as 
over that of a father. During his reign the frontiers of the 
empire were not disturbed by any aggressions, and Agricola 
was engaged in the conquest of Britain, which he secured by 
fortifications between the Clyde and Forth. 

7. Titus was succeeded by his brother Domitian, a man 
who had already given numerous proofs of his cruel and 
tyrannical disposition, and was even believed to have made 


REIGN OF DOMITIAN. 


541 


attempts upon the lives of his father and brother. At 
first, however, his conduct led his subjects to believe that he 
was better than his reputation, but afterwards he displayed 
his real character, and became one of the darkest and most 
detestable tyrants that ever disgraced a throne. Hosts of 
informers again arose as in the worst days of his predecessors. 
He increased the pay of the soldiers to make himself popu¬ 
lar with them, and in order to obtain the means necessary 
for this and other extravagances, he had recourse to confisca¬ 
tions, and wealthy persons were treated as criminals merely 
to enable the despot to gain possession of their property. 
His only delights were the gladiatorial exhibitions, and the 
torturing of his victims. He was by no means devoid of 
talent, but his occupation with poetry and literature did not 
improve his savage nature. In a. d. 83 he undertook an 
expedition against the Chatti, and built a frontier wall 
between the free Germans and those who were subject to the 
empire. In the year following Agricola gained a great vic¬ 
tory over the Caledonians, who were commanded by their chief 
Galgacus, at the foot of the Grampians; but as Domitian was 
jealous of the success of his general, he recalled him to Rome. 
Two years later, a. d. 86, the warlike nation of the Dacians 
crossed the Danube and defeated the Roman army in Moesia. 
Domitian himself took the field, but was unable to repel 
them. The Marcomanni and other tribes which were allied 
with Rome, refused to support the emperor, and thus obliged 
him to purchase a disgraceful peace from the Dacian king Dece- 
balus, a. d. 30. Notwithstanding this ignominy, Domitian did 
not blush to celebrate a triumph over the Dacians, and assume 
the name of Dacicus; but as he nevertheless felt his humilia¬ 
tion keenly, he became still more ferocious, and went so far 
in his madness as to order himself to be worshipped as “ Lord 
and God.” The noblest men w T ere put to death for opinions 
they ventured to express; the philosophers, one of whom 


542 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


-was the great Epictetus, were expelled, and the Christians, 
whose number had been steadily increasing at Rome, were 
murdered and persecuted without mercy. In the end, how¬ 
ever, his own wife Domitia, whom he intended to put to 
death, formed a conspiracy against him, and the tyrant was 
stabbed in his bed-room by one of her freedmen, on the 18th 
of September a. d. 96. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

FROM THE ACCESSION OF NERVA, TO THE DEATH OF 

M. AURELIUS. 

1. Hitherto all the Roman emperors had been natives of 
Italy; but henceforth we frequently find provincials raised to 
the imperial dignity, and it was fortunate for the empire that 
it was so, for the moral corruption and degradation of Rome 
and Italy had not yet spread over all the provinces, and the 
five emperors who followed after Domitian form so noble a 
contrast with their unworthy predecessors (always excepting 
Vespasian and Titus), that the period of their reign from 
a. d. 96 to a. d. 180, is regarded as the happiest in the 
whole history of the Roman emperors. Immediately after 
the murder of Domitian, the people and soldiers proclaimed 
Nerva, a venerable senator of mild disposition. He was, 
however, not the man whom the praetorians wished to see 
at the head of affairs, and was therefore obliged to be cau¬ 
tious, both in punishing offenders and in restoring those who 
had been exiled by Domitian. But the insolence of the 
praetorians knew no bounds, and in order to strengthen 
himself, he adopted Ulpius Trajan, a man of unblemished 
character, who at the time had the command of the legions 



REIGN OF TRAJAN. 


543 


in Germany. But three months after he had taken this step 
he died of a fever on the 27th of January a. d. 98. If he 
had lived longer, he would unquestionably have wrought a 
great moral change among his subjects. 

2. Trajan was a native of Italica in Spain, and arrived 
at Rome in the year a. d. 99. His administration of the 
internal affairs of the empire gained for him the surname of 
“the Best,” while his military undertakings shewed him to 
be a man of great military talent. He first of all got rid of 
the infamous class of informers, many of whom were exiled, 
and punished the most turbulent among the praetorians. He 
restored to the senate its power, and founded an institution 
for the education of poor children of both sexes ; he facilitated 
trade and commerce by making new roads, canals, bridges, 
and by extending the port of Civita Vecchia; he adorned 
Rome, Italy, and the provinces with triumphal arches, 
porticoes, temples, and Rome in particular with the institution 
of a public library, and the building of a new Forum, in the 
centre of which rose the celebrated column of Trajan with its 
bas-relief sculptures representing his own exploits against the 
Dacians. He honoured men of intellectual culture, and loved 
their society, as we see from the relation subsisting between 
him and the historian Tacitus and the younger Pliny. 
Trajan’s own mode of life was simple and without any pomp 
or ostentation. His wife Plotina and his sister Marciana are 
among the most estimable female characters in Roman history, 
and contributed by their example not a little towards the 
improvement in the conduct of Roman ladies, which hence¬ 
forth is not disgraced by that licentiousness which forms so 
deplorable a feature in their character during the first century 
of the empire. 

3. Trajan deeply felt the humiliation of paying to the 
Dacians the tribute with which Domitian had purchased peace, 
and iD a. d. 100, he set out with a large army against Dacia, 


544 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


which was still governed by king Decebalus. Trajan took his 
capital Zarmizegethusa, defeated him in several battles, and 
compelled him, in a. d. 103, to sue for peace, which was 
granted to him on condition of his ceding a portion of his 
dominions to the empire. This peace, however, did not last 
long, for in a. d. 104 the Dacians rose again. Trajan then 
caused a stone bridge to be built over the Danube to facilitate 
his operations, and marching into Dacia, pressed the enemy 
so hard, that Decebalus in despair made away with himself, 
A. d. 106. Dacia (g. e. Moldavia, Wallachia, and Tran¬ 
sylvania) then became a Eoman province, and received 
numerous colonies, which in a short time firmly established 
Roman culture and civilisation among the Dacians. Trajan, 
on his return to Rome, erected the above-mentioned column, 
which is still one of the most interesting remains of ancient 
Rome. In a, d. 114, the Parthians again menaced the 
eastern frontiers of the empire, for their king, deposing 
the king of Armenia, raised his own brother to the throne. 
Trajan immediately took the field against them. The Arme¬ 
nians received him with open arms, and their country was made 
a Roman province, a. d. 115; Nisibis then fell into his hands, 
and with it the whole of Mesopotamia. The emperor even 
crossed the Tigris, subdued Assyria, and took the towns of 
Seleucia and Ctesiphon, the capital of the Parthians, who were 
obliged to accept Parthamaspates as their king. When the 
affairs of the Parthians were thus settled, Trajan entered 
Arabia, where some of his lieutenants had made conquests 
before, but being taken ill, he left his legate Hadrian in the 
command of his forces, and hastened to return to Rome ; death, 
however, overtook him at Selinus in Cilicia, on the 9th of 
August a. d. 117. His remains were carried to Rome and 
deposited under the column which he had erected in his 
Forum. 

4. After the death of Trajan, his wife Plotina spread a 


REIGN OF HADRIAN. 


545 


report that during his illness he had adopted Hadrian, who 
accordingly undertook the sovereignty at Antioch, where he 
was then staying, and where he was proclaimed. Hadrian 
was a native of Picenum, and his father had been married to 
a relation of Trajan. His disposition was less warlike than 
that of his predecessor, and seeing that the maintenance of the 
conquests made by him would involve the empire in perpetual 
wars, he made the Euphrates the boundary in the East, restoring 
Assyria and Mesopotamia to the Parthians, and Armenia to the 
rank of an independent kingdom. Hawing thus settled the affairs 
in the East, he returned to Rome, a. d. 118, and then marched 
into Moesia, which had been invaded by Sarmatian tribes. 
As he did not wish to make conquests, but only to protect the 
frontiers of the empire, he concluded peace with the Roxolani. 
In the meantime, a plot was formed against him by a num¬ 
ber of his personal enemies ; but the scheme was discovered, 
and as his severity in punishing the leaders created ill feeling 
both in the army and at Rome, Hadrian, fearing serious con¬ 
sequences, returned to Rome, where he did everything in his 
power to conciliate the senate and people, while the war 
against the Sarmatians was continued by his legates. 

5. When the frontiers of the empire had been secured, 
Hadrian, in a. d. 120, undertook a journey through all the 
provinces of the empire, a great part of which he made on 
foot, accompanied by only a small retinue. He visited Gaul, 
Germany, Britain, the northern part of which he secured 
against the invasions of the Scots by the famous wall extend¬ 
ing from the mouth of the Tyne to the Solway; Greece, 
Asia, and Egypt, where his favourite Antinoiis was drowned 
in the Nile. These journeys were undertaken partly on 
account of a certain restlessness in his disposition, partly to 
satisfy his curiosity, and partly to make himself personally 
acquainted with the wants of the provinces, and discover 
the means for improving their condition. Everywhere he left 

2 N 


546 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


memorials cf bis visits, which were designed either to defend 
and strengthen towns and provinces, or to embellish them, 
for he was a man of high intellectual culture, and capable of 
noble feelings, though vanity and conceit rendered him easily 
accessible to flattery, and towards the end of his life, mistrust 
and weariness of life often led him to harshness and cruelty, 
Athens, where he loved to dwell, was embellished by him 
with extraordinary splendour. His taste for the arts, not to 
mention the aqueducts, bridges, and temples, with which he 
adorned Rome, Athens, Nemausus, and other places, was 
displayed especially in his villa below Tibur, which is still 
a real mine of valuable antiquities, and his magnificent mau¬ 
soleum at Rome (Castle St. Angelo). Hadrian was also a 
munificent patron of literature and science, though in this 
respect, as well as in his cultivation of the arts, he was very 
capricious, and much given to astrology and other super¬ 
stitious pursuits. The philosophers and rhetoricians who 
were his friends, and lived at his court, such as Plutarch, 
Herodes Atticus, and Fronto, were men skilled in the use of 
courtly and tinkling phrases, but deficient in manly spirit and 
independence. 

6. Shortly before Hadrian’s return from his travels, 
a. d. 133, a fearful insurrection broke out among the Jews, 
who were indignant at the pagan worship established in 
their country. In consequence of this they now rose in 
arms, and carried on a desperate war for several years; but 
in the end they were crushed by Julius Severus, who was 
summoned from Britain to conduct the war against them. 
Jerusalem was made a Roman colony under the name of 
JElia Capitolina, and the Jews henceforth were forbidden to 
live in the city or its immediate vicinity, and thousands were 
sold into slavery. Hadrian, in the meantime, lived in retire¬ 
ment ; the fatigues he had undergone had impaired his health, 
and he was so tired of life that he made several attempts at 


REIGN OF ANTONINUS PIUS. 


547 


suicide ; but he died at Baiae, on the 10th of July a.d. 138. 
As he had no children, he adopted during his illness Arrius 
Antoninus (Antoninus Pius), whom he obliged to adopt Annius 
Verus (M. Aurelius). During the last three years of his life, 
Hadrian, in consequence of the state of his health, had com¬ 
mitted many acts which rendered him unpopular ; but Anto¬ 
ninus, with true filial affection for him, did all he could to 
prevent an outbreak of popular indignation, and hence deserved 
the surname of Pius. 

7. Antoninus Pius, w T ho was descended from a family 
belonging to Nemausus in Gaul, owed his adoption by Hadrian 
solely to his virtues. He had already distinguished himself 
by his wisdom and mildness in various high offices with which 
he had been invested. His reign, from a. d. 138 to a. d. 161, 
forms the happiest period of the Eoman empire. He strictly 
adhered to the principles of his predecessor, and used to say, 
that he would rather save the life of one citizen than slay a 
thousand enemies. He was a real ornament of the imperial 
throne, and was beloved throughout the empire perhaps more 
than any sovereign has ever been beloved either before or since. 
His whole care was devoted to the advancement of the arts of 
peace and the happiness of his people. These objects he endea¬ 
voured to attain by the proper administration of justice, and 
by educational and charitable institutions for the poor and for 
orphan children. The peace which prevailed during his reign, 
and his own fervent piety, gained for him the name of a second 
Numa. The Christians, who then existed in large numbers 
both at Rome and in the provinces, were not disturbed in 
their religious observances. He died on the 7th of March 
a.d. 161, in one of his villas where he loved to reside in 
rural retirement. The Roman empire was so situated that 
it could not be safe for any length of time without war, and 
as the troops had been inactive throughout his reign, they had 
become idle and unwarlike, and when dangers burst in upon 


548 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


the empire under his successor, it was found that the armies 
were no longer what they had been. 

8. As the two sons of Antoninus had died before their 
father, he was succeeded, according to the established custom, 
by his adopted son M. Aurelius, surnamed the Philosopher, a 
native of Rome. He had been educated with the greatest 
care, and had from his earliest days shown an extreme love^ 
of truth and thirst for knowledge. The doctrines of the Stoic 
philosophy had a peculiar charm for him, and he continued 
his favourite pursuit even after he had ascended the throne, 
though he did not neglect his duties as a ruler when the 
empire was in danger. As, however, he was of a weakly 
constitution, he admitted his adopted brother L. Yerus, a 
young and active man, to a full participation of the sovereign 
power; Verus, however, was addicted to debauchery and 
voluptuousness, which dispositions he had until then carefully 
concealed from M. Aurelius ; but he indulged in them without 
restraint as soon as he found himself abroad at the head of 
the armies. The Parthians, who had been restrained by the 
remonstrances of Antoninus, now began making inroads into 
the Roman provinces, and L. Yerus set out against them in A. d. 
162. On arriving in Syria, he at once abandoned himself to 
his voluptuous propensities, leaving the command of the forces 
to his lieutenants, one of whom invaded Mesopotamia and 
destroyed Seleucia and Ctesiphon, while another made himself 
master of Armenia. Peace was at last concluded with the 
Parthian king, in which he was obliged to cede Mesopotamia 
to the Romans, a. d. 166. 

9. But still more serious dangers were threatening the 
empire in the north-east, for a number of German and Sar- 
matian tribes, such as the Marcomanni and Quadi, were on 
the point of invading Italy, and had already advanced as far 
as Aquileia. Soon after Yerus’ return from Syria, the two 
emperors marched out together against the barbarians, and 


REIGN OF M. AURELIUS. 


549 


displayed such overwhelming power that the enemies retreated 
before them. In a. d. 169 L. Verus died of a fit of apoplexy, 
and M. Aurelius, now sole emperor, continued the war with 
great vigour. On one occasion a great battle was fought on 
the frozen Danube. In a.d. 174 the whole of the Roman 
army was surrounded, and was saved from destruction only 
by a violent storm. This sudden and unexpected success of 
the Romans struck the barbarians with awe, and they sought 
and obtained peace, on condition of their withdrawing beyond 
the Danube, a. d. 175. After the pacification of the Danubian 
frontier, M. Aurelius was called to the East by an insurrection 
of Avidius Cassius, who had been instigated by the emperor’s 
own wife Faustina, the unworthy daughter of Antoninus 
Pius. While he was engaged in quelling the insurrection 
with a moderation and mildness to which history scarcely 
presents a parallel, the Marcomanni and their allies renewed 
the war. In a. d. 178 he therefore once more set out against 
the Germans and Sarmatians, and fought several successful 
battles; but before the war was brought to a close he 
died at Sirmium, on the 17th of March a.d. 180. His son 
Commodus, who had accompanied him, now made haste to 
purchase peace of the barbarians, and thereby revealed to 
them the weakness of the empire, or rather his own. M. 
Aurelius had been a philosopher on the throne, in the noblest 
sense of the term. Notwithstanding the almost uninterrupted 
wars of his reign, he found leisure to compose his celebrated 
“ Meditations,” in which he has portrayed himself with all his 
amiable, affectionate, and benevolent sentiments. His reign 
closes the series of really good emperors. His son Commodus, 
who succeeded him, was one of the most contemptible and 
insane tyrants known in history. 


550 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

FROM THE ACCESSION OF COMMODUS TO THAT OF 

DIOCLETIAN. 

1. The accession of Commodus forms the beginning of 
the decline of the empire, both internally and externally. 
The best age of Roman literature and the arts had come to 
a close even before the death of Augustus; the subsequent 
period, though much inferior in many respects, yet produced a 
Tacitus and a Juvenal; the arts also revived under Hadrian ; 
but all is now over, and everything tends downwards. The 
praetorian guards henceforth exercised a most frightful military 
despotism ; and as the troops stationed in the provinces did not 
always acquiesce in the choice of the praetorians, sometimes 
two or even more emperors were proclaimed at once in diffe¬ 
rent parts of the empire. From the time of Commodus there 
is an irregular succession of emperors, who, with very few 
exceptions, are distinguished only for tyranny and baseness, 
or impotence and weakness. 

2. After having purchased peace of the Marcomanni, 
Commodus, not yet twenty years old, hastened to Italy to 
indulge in all the pleasures and licentiousness of the capital, 
for the excellent education he had received, and the noble 
example of his father were lost upon him. During the first 
two years of his reign there was not much to complain of, and 
the best hopes were entertained of him ; but a conspiracy 
formed against him in a. d. 183 by his own sister changed 
everything, and the whole remaining period of his life was an 
uninterrupted series of sanguinary and disgusting excesses. 
The friends and advisers of his father were put to death, and 
the business of the state was left to the lowest creatures, 


C )MMODir-PERTINAX. 


551 


while Commodus abandoned himself publicly and without 
shame to the grossest vices and most brutal debaucheries. His 
greatest ambition w~as to shine as a gladiator in the circus, 
both against wild beasts and human beings, and his athletic 
strength led him to regard himself as a second Hercules. In 
a. d. 185 he was forced by his troops in Britain to recall their 
commander Perennis, -whose tyranny was unbearable to the 
men ; but at the same time he appointed his favourite freedman, 
Oleander, prefect of the praetorian guards. The exasperation 
against the unworthy favourite soon rose to such a pitch that he 
was literally torn to pieces by the populace. At the same time 
Italy was suffering from plague and famine, while the emperor 
amused himself with his concubines, and with butchering the 
noblest among the senators. At length he formed the design 
of entering the senate-house on the 1st of January a. d. 193 
with a band of gladiators, and of murdering the consuls and 
many other persons of eminence. The list of the victims fell 
into the hands of his mistress Marcia, and finding her own 
name among them, she, in conjunction with others, caused the 
tyrant to be strangled in his bed, on the 31st of December 
192. During his whole reign he had never troubled himself 
about the safety of the empire, but its integrity was never¬ 
theless maintained by tne valour of his generals. Britain was 
disturbed by invasions of the Caledonians, who defeated the 
Roman legions, and spread devastation far and wide ; but 
Ulpius Marcellus drove them back into their own country, 
and terminated the war against them in a. d. 184. 

3. The death of Commodus spread joy throughout Rome, 
and the senate cursed his memory; the praetorians alone 
were dissatisfied, for upon them he had most lavishly squan¬ 
dered the treasures of the empire. His murderers proclaimed 
Pertinax, the prefect of the city, emperor, and he accepted 
the proffered dignity not without great reluctance. In order 
to replenish the empty treasury, he sold all the costly and 


552 


HISTORY OP ROME. 


luxurious furniture, the mistresses and favourite boys of Com- 
modus, and commenced a series of useful reforms. But the 
praetorians, vexed at the attempts to curb their licentious¬ 
ness, which had been connived at by Commodus, rose in open 
rebellion, and Pertinax was murdered before the end of March, 
after a reign of scarcely three months. This murder was the 
commencement of a state of perfect anarchy. The praetorians, 
who now amounted to sixteen thousand men, ascended the 
walls of their fortified barracks, and offered the sovereignty 
to the man who would give them the largest donative. All 
competitors were outbidden by the wealthy glutton Didius 
Julianus, who promised to give to every praetorian about 
one hundred and eighty pounds, and was accordingly pro¬ 
claimed emperor. The senate, however, detested him, and 
the people refusing to recognise him, took up arms. The 
praetorians also grew lukewarm in his defence, as he did not at 
once give them the promised sum of money. At the same time 
the army in Syria proclaimed Pescennius Niger, and the legions 
of Illyricum raised Septimius Severus to the imperial dignity. 
The latter, wiser than his competitor, advanced with his 
army into Italy; Didius Julianus, who in vain offered to 
share the government with him, was put to death by order of 
the senate on the 1st of July, and Severus was recognised as 
emperor. 

4. Septimius Severus, after being raised to the throne, 
determined to maintain himself by inexorable severity. Dis¬ 
banding the praetorian guards, he selected others four times 
more numerous, and instituted a complete military despotism. 
He then marched to the East against Pescennius Niger ; 
three battles were fought, and it was only in the third, 
in the neighbourhood of Issus, a. d. 194, that Niger was 
completely defeated; he was afterwards killed while endea¬ 
vouring to escape by flight. The city of Byzantium, which 
was in the hands of the partizans of Niger, was defended for 


SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS. 


553 


two years by the valour of its garrison and its strong fortifica¬ 
tions ; but when in the end it was compelled by famine to 
surrender, Severus took fearful vengeance, and ordered its 
fortifications to be demolished, whereby he unwisely deprived 
the empire of one of its strong frontier fortresses. Clodius 
Albinus, the governor of Britain, who had openly declared 
himself against Didius Julianus and Niger, was rewarded by 
Severus with the title of Caesar, which conferred upon him 
the right of succession; but afterwards discovering that Seve¬ 
rus had formed a plan for procuring his assassination, he took 
up arms against him, and found many followers among those 
who were displeased with the emperor’s severity. The latter 
accordingly was obliged to hasten from the East to Gaul, 
where a schoolmaster had already collected an army for him. 
Clodius Albinus was defeated in a. d. 197 near Lyons in Gaul, 
he himself perished, and all his friends and relations were put to 
death with cruel tortures. On his return to Rome the emperor 
behaved with equal sternness. In a. d. 198 he made a suc¬ 
cessful expedition against the Parthians, whom he deprived 
of the province of Mesopotamia together with the towns of 
Dara and Nisibis ; but Atra in Arabia was besieged in vain. 
He also paid a visit to Egypt, where some new regulations 
w T ere made. When at length he had got rid of all his com¬ 
petitors and felt himself safe in the possession of the sovereignty, 
he endeavoured to improve the laws and through them public 
morality; in these endeavours he was assisted by the great 
jurists Papinian and Ulpian, who may be termed his ministers 
of justice. At the same time he took upon himself the w'hole 
administration of the empire,—its finances, and its stores, 
depriving the senate of nearly all its powers. In a. d. 208 
the Caledonians repeated their invasion of the north of 
England, in consequence of which he proceeded to Britain, 
taking with him his two sons Antoninus Caracalla and Sep- 
timius Geta. He penetrated indeed far into the northern part 


554 


HISTORY OF ROSIE. 


of Britain, but sustained severe losses, until in a. d. 210 be 
succeeded in compelling tbe Caledonians to submit, and 
completed tbe fortification which had been erected between tbe 
Solway and Tyne. While engaged in this manner be was 
taken ill; grief at tbe faithless conduct of his son Caracalla 
aggravated bis illness, and be died at York on tbe 4th of 
February a. d. 211. 

5. Tbe two brothers Caracalla and Geta, who bad both 
been destined by their father to succeed him, concluded a 
treaty with tbe Caledonians, who had again revolted, and then 
returned to Rome. Tbe hatred wdiich they had cherished 
against each other from their boyhood now burst forth with 
greater animosity, and it was in vain that their mother Julia 
Domna attempted to bring about a reconciliation : Caracalla, 
the more cruel of the two, caused his brother to be murdered 
in the very arms of his mother, and then declared him to be a 
god, a. n. 212. No one, however, was allowed to mention the 
name of Geta, and all his friends were put to death. Among 
these victims was Caracalla’s own instructor, the great jurist 
Papinian, who refused to justify the fratricide. Besides these, 
thousands of others were murdered in order that the tyrant 
might gain possession of their property. When these means 
no longer sufficed to provide him with what he wanted to 
gratify his lusts, he deteriorated the coinage, and in order to 
be able to increase the taxes, conferred the Roman fran¬ 
chise upon all free-born subjects of the empire. But all 
these things made his name so odious at Rome, that he felt 
uneasy, and resolved to travel through the various countries 
of the empire, all of which were now equally robbed and 
plundered, and deprived of their best inhabitants. Thus he 
devastated Gaul in a. d. 213, and in the year following, he 
was obliged to purchase peace of the Germans, notwithstand¬ 
ing which he assumed the title Germanicus. After this he 
traversed Macedonia, aping Alexander the Great in his dress, 


CARACALLA-MACEINUS—ELAGABALUS. 


555 


gestures, and the inclination of the head ; thence he proceeded 
to Asia Minor, where he imitated Achilles. Osrhoene was 
made by him a Eoman province, but an attempt upon Armenia 
failed. At last he arrived in Alexandria, where some pas¬ 
quinades upon him had been circulated. For this offence he 
now punished the city, in a. d. 215, by ordering the greater part 
of its inhabitants to be butchered by his soldiers. The place 
is said to have been literally deluged with blood. After this 
atrocity he proceeded to Antioch, being desirous to obtain the 
surname Parthicus. He gained his object, without fight¬ 
ing a battle, by treacherously causing Artabanes, the king 
of the Parthians, to be put to death. But on his return he 
himself was murdered, on the 8tli of April, a.d. 217, near 
Edessa by his own soldiers, headed by Macrinus, the prefect 
of the praetorians. His memory was cursed and his name 
effaced from all public monuments. 

6. Macrinus, the murderer, was then proclaimed emperor 
by the soldiers, and continued the war against the Parthians, 
but without success, and was obliged to purchase peace of 
them with an enormous sum of money. The Roman senate 
disliked Macrinus, because, being himself a Mauritanian of 
low origin, he raised vulgar persons to rank and station, and 
with the soldiers he was unpopular, on account of his harsh¬ 
ness. Maesa, a sister of Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius 
Severus, accordingly had no difficulty in exciting the soldiers 
against him, and persuading them to confer the imperial 
dignity upon her own grandson Elagabalus, a priest of the 
Sun at Emesa. This happened on the 8th of June a. d. 
218. In the ensuing struggle between the two emperors, 
Macrinus and his son Diadumenianus were murdered at Chal- 
cedon. The mad and brutal lusts, and the fearful extrava¬ 
gance of Elagabalus, however, soon created universal disgust. 
It would almost seem that at times he was actually labouring 
under insanity; he raised his grandmother to the rank of a 


556 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


senator, and instituted a senate of ladies, to honour his 
mother, and to determine the fashions and ceremonies. He 
also introduced at Rome the Syrian worship of the Sun, by 
which he destroyed the last traces of the ancient Roman 
discipline and morality. As Maesa perceived that the Romans 
would not tolerate the young and cruel voluptuary much 
longer, she persuaded him to raise Alexander Severus, another 
grandson of hers, to the rank of Caesar; Elagabalus complied 
with the request, but finding that the Caesar daily rose in 
popularity, he attempted to murder him ; at length the prae¬ 
torians, utterly disgusted with him, put him and his mother 
to death on the 11th of March a. d. 222. 

7. Alexander Severus was only in his seventeenth year 
when he ascended the throne; he was a simple-hearted man 
of good moral principles, who made many useful regulations, 
and followed the advice of his intelligent mother Mammaea, 
who was well disposed towards the Christians; but he did not 
possess the strength of character required by the exigencies 
of the times. Assisted in the government by his mother and 
a council of sixteen senators, he endeavoured to restrain within 
proper bounds the lascivious manners of his subjects, exiled 
useless servants and faithless governors of provinces, promoted 
commerce, and reduced oppressive taxes. Notwithstanding 
all this, attempts were made to dethrone him, and the prae¬ 
torians, exasperated at the severity of the great jurist Ulpian, 
murdered him with impunity before the emperor’s own eyes, 
a. d. 228. Alexander Severus had not only to contend with 
enemies at home, but the frontiers of the empire were threatened 
by foreign foes. In a.d. 226, the Persians under Artaxerxes 
(Ardishir) overturned the kingdom of the Parthians, andfounded 
the dynasty of the Sassanidae, so called from Artaxerxes being 
a son of Sassan. The object of the new rulers was to restore 
the ancient Persian empire in its whole extent, and accordingly 
they invaded Mesopotamia and Syria. The feeble garrisons 


SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER SEVERUS. 


557 


were unable to offer any effective resistance, and some even went 
over to the enemy. In a. d. 231 Alexander Severus himself 
proceeded to the East, and, having restored discipline among 
the troops, commenced a war against Artaxerxes, in which, 
according to some authorities, he was very successful against 
the proud Persian. At all events, the Persians for some time 
after this remained quiet or made conquests in other quarters. 
Severus returned to Rome in triumph a. d. 233, and soon 
after, being informed that German tribes were harassing Gaul, 
he hastened to the aid of the threatened province. But 
before he had an opportunity of fighting a battle, he and his 
mother were murdered in the camp near Mayence on the 10th 
of February a. d. 235, by his soldiers, who wanted a more 
valiant and liberal ruler. 

8. Maximinus, a rude Thracian, but a man of great 
bodily strength and experience in war, was then proclaimed 
emperor by the soldiers. He was an enemy to the Christian 
religion, and immediately on his accession, he showed 
the rudeness of his character, by causing many of his own 
benefactors to be put to death, and dispatching all those 
who showed the slightest symptoms of attachment to others. 
He was, however, successful against the Germans, whose 
country he devastated far and wide. His elevation, which 
was not approved of by the Roman senate, threw the empire 
into such confusion, that within twenty years no less than 
twelve emperors were set up and deposed. In a. d. 238, 
the legions stationed in Africa, with the consent of the 
senate, proclaimed Gordian emperor, who being already at 
the advanced age of eighty, assumed his son as his colleague. 
This happened in the month of February, but in March of 
the same year, Capelianus, Maximinus’ perfect of Mauritania, 
defeated and slew the younger Gordian in a battle, and drove 
the aged father to kill himself in despair. Terrified by 
this news, the senate raised two eminent senators, Maximus 


558 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


and Balbinus, to the imperial dignity, and by the demand 
of tbe people, Gordian, a boy of thirteeen years, and a grand¬ 
son of the elder Gordian, was raised to the rank of Caesar. 
In a. d. 238 Maximinus advanced with his army from 
Germany into Italy. Terror preceded him everywhere, and 
the citizens leaving their unprotected homes took refuge in 
the fortresses, which the invader did not find it easy to take. 
While besieging Aquileia, the soldiers suffering from want, 
and seeing that the whole empire was opposed to Maximinus, 
put him and his son to death in the month of April, and joined 
the army of Maximus, who was encamped in the neighbour¬ 
hood of Ravenna. 

9. In the meantime the praetorian guards at Rome being 
dissatisfied with the emperors Maximus and Balbinus, who 
had been appointed by the senate, murdered them in the 
month of July during the Capitoline games, and proclaimed 
young Gordian emperor. This boy, who was thus raised to 
the throne, was at first misled and deceived by dishonest 
advisers; but from a. d. 241, in which he married a daughter 
of Misitheus, he allowed himself to be guided by the prudent 
and disinterested advice of his father-in-law. In the same 
year the Persians renewed the war with greater vehemence 
than ever under their king Sapor I., and Gordian, accom¬ 
panied by Misitheus, set out for the East, and drove the 
enemy from Syria and Mesopotamia, which had been ravaged 
by them. Unfortunately Misitheus died two years later, 
and Philippus, an Arab by birth, who was appointed 
his successor as prefect of the praetorians, stirred up a 
mutinous spirit among the soldiers. By this means he com¬ 
pelled Gordian to make him his colleague in the empire, and 
afterwards, in the month of April a. d. 244, caused the 
young prince to be murdered near Circesium on the confines 
of Assyria. Philippus then concluded peace with the 
Persians and returned to Rome, where he favoured the 


GORDIAN III.-PHILIPPUS-DECIUS. 


559 


Christians, and carried on the government not without wisdom 
and moderation; hut these very circumstances combined with 
his eastern origin made him' unpopular, and it was in vain 
that, in A. d. 247, he entertained the people with magnificent 
ludi saeculares to commemorate the thousand years’ existence 
of Rome. In a. d. 249 the legions stationed in Moesia com¬ 
pelled Decius against his will to assume the imperial dignity. 
He informed Philippus by letter that he would resign his power 
as soon as he arrived at Rome, but Philippus, distrusting him, 
marched with an army to the north of Italy, where he was 
defeated and killed in a battle near Verona. 

10. Decius ascended the throne about the middle of a. d. 
249, and after quelling some disturbances in Gaul, returned to 
Rome, where he commenced a fearful persecution of the Chris¬ 
tians throughout the empire, and endeavoured by the revival 
of ancient institutions to check the downward course of the 
empire. But it was in vain, and the more the state suffered 
from internal decay and dissolution, the more did the bar¬ 
barians on the frontiers, especially the Germans, become 
emboldened. The Goths, a numerous German tribe, who 
first appear in history as inhabitants of the banks of the 
Vistula, had advanced southward to the frontiers of Dacia as 
early as the time of Caracalla. In alliance with many other 
German tribes, and commanded by their own kings, they 
first attacked the provinces about the Danube. In a. d. 250, 
the Goth Cniva, with an army of seventy thousand men, crossed 
the Danube, and advanced as far as Philippopolis in Thrace; 
Decius marched into Thrace, and succeeded in driving the 
barbarians back across the Danube, but owing to the treachery 
of his own general Gallus Trebonianus, he was killed with his 
son during an engagement in a marshy district of Moesia, a. d. 
251. Gallus, who was then proclaimed emperor by the legions, 
made Hostilianus, a son of the brave Decius, his colleague in 
the empire, and his own son Volusianus was raised to the rank 


560 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


of Caesar. A pestilence was then beginning to rage in all 
parts of the empire, and continuing for the long period of 
fifteen years, carried off a vast multitude of men. Hosti- 
lianus was one of its victims in a. d. 252. Throughout this 
time, Gallus remained inactive at Eome, while the Goths and 
other tribes again invaded Moesia and Pannonia. But his 
brave general iEmilius iEmilianus repelled the enemy, and, 
proud of his victory, accepted the purple offered to him by 
his soldiers. The new emperor forthwith proceeded with his 
army to Italy; Gallus met the usurper in Umbria, but both he 
and his son Volusianus were put to death by their mutinous 
soldiers, in May a. d. 253. iEmilianus now took possession 
of the throne, but scarcely four months later he too was killed 
by his faithless soldiers in the neighbourhood of Spoleto. 

11. Just at this time, Valerian, a most distinguished 
man, and a friend of Gallus, was approaching Italy with 
Gallic and German legions to avenge the murder of his 
friend. His army at once saluted him as emperor; in Rome, 
too, his arrival was welcomed, and he appointed his own son 
Gallienus his colleague in the administration of the empire. He 
did all he could to restore the internal tranquillity of the 
empire, carefully watched over the execution of justice, and 
reduced obnoxious taxes ; but unfortunately he had not much 
time to devote to these internal reforms, for the empire was 
at the time threatened on all sides; the Franks and Ale- 
manni were crossing the Rhine, the Goths invaded Moesia, 
and the Persians in the East, under their powerful king 
Sapor, crossed the Euphrates and even made themselves 
masters of Antioch. Gallienus, or rather his brave legate 
Postumus, in a.d. 256 fought successfully against the Franks, 
a confederation of German tribes dwelling between the Rhine 
and the Weser, such as the Bructeri, Sigambri, aud Cliatti. 
Valerian himself, in a.d. 258, marched against the Persians, 
recovered Antioch, and penetrated into Mesopotamia; but 


GALLIENUS. 


561 


two years later, lie was defeated and taken prisoner by the 
Persians in the neighbourhood of Edessa. Valerian never 
recovered his freedom, but remained in captivity until his 
death, enduring the most insolent treatment at the hands of 
his enemies, who now recovered Antioch and even made 
conquests in Asia Minor, until the Roman general Balista 
forced them to return across the Euphrates. 

12. From a. d. 260 Gallienus was sole emperor until a. d. 
268, and, on the whole, did his best to promote the prosperity 
of the empire. But things had come to a pass when it required 
more than human strength to keep the tottering edifice 
together. In the reign of Gallienus, insurrections broke out 
in nearly all the provinces of the empire, each of which pro¬ 
claimed its own sovereign. This period is foolishly called the 
period of the Thirty Tyrants, from the thirty who governed 
Athens after the close of the Peloponnesian war; for the number 
of pretenders to the imperial throne did not amount to more 
than nineteen or twenty. While the empire thus seemed to 
fall to pieces, the barbarians invaded it on all sides; the 
Franks and Alemannians advanced as far as Italy, the Quadi 
even entered Spain, and the Goths Asia Minor. The Isauri 
in Asia revolted and became for ever separated from the 
empire. In Palmyra, Odenathus made himself independent, 
after having defeated the Persians, and his independence was 
recognised by Gallienus in a. d. 264. The ancient city of 
Palmyra, situated in an oasis in the Syrian desert, and said to 
have been built by Solomon, had become wealthy and power¬ 
ful through commerce; and in the time of Hadrian and the 
Antonines, it was a great centre of Greek art and culture. 
The splendid ruins of Palmyra, which were discovered about 
the end of the seventeenth century, still attest its ancient 
magnificence. Postumus, who had defeated the Franks, 
set himself up as emperor in Gaul, a. d. 258, and maintained 

himself for nearly seven years, after which he was murdsred 

2 o 


562 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


by bis soldiers, because be would not allow them to plunder 
tbe rebellious city of Mayence. Macrianus, tbe commander 
in Syria, by whose treachery Valerian bad fallen into tbe 
bands of the Persians, assumed tbe imperial purple in a. d. 
261, and appointed bis two sons bis colleagues; but be was 
conquered by Odenatbus, who, in a. d. 264, was made the 
colleague of Gallienus. Three years later Odenatbus was 
killed by a relative, and bis wife Zencbia, who undertook tbe 
government of her kingdom, became tbe real founder of tbe 
empire of Palmyra in Syria. Egypt was in tbe meantime 
ravaged by plague and civil wars. Tbe other usurpers, 
such as Valens, Piso, Tetricus, and others, did not maintain 
their power for any length of time. Tbe last of them was 
Aureolus, who assumed the purple in Raetia, a. d. 262. Gal¬ 
lienus, assembling all bis forces, besieged him at Milan; but, 
in tbe beginning of a. d. 268, a conspiracy was formed against 
Gallienus, who was assassinated in bis camp before Milan. 
Aureolus, however, was unable to maintain himself, and was 
killed in tbe same year, whereupon Claudius, surnamed 
Gotbicus, was proclaimed emperor by tbe soldiers. 

13. Claudius bad already distinguished himself as a brave 
warrior, and a lover of strict justice, and now commenced 
tbe restoration of tbe empire by successful campaigns against 
the barbarians. Tbe Alemanni, who bad invaded Italy, were 
defeated near Lake Benacus, and in a. d. 269 be set out 
against tbe Goths, who bad penetrated into Macedonia, and 
were besieging tbe towns of Cassandreia and Tbessalonica. 
In a decisive battle near Naissus in Serbia, tbe Goths were 
overpowered and compelled to retrace their steps. But not 
long afterwards, in tbe month of April a. d. 270, the emperor 
died at Sirmium, of a disease which carried off thousands both 
of Romans and Goths. At tbe time of bis death, Claudius 
was preparing for an expedition against Zenobia, who had 
subdued Syria and Egypt. After bis death tbe legions at 


AURELIAN. 


563 


Aquileia proclaimed his brother Quintillus, who, on hearing 
that the legions on the Danube had offered the purple to 
Aurelian, ordered his veins to be opened, and died on the 
seventeenth day after his accession. 

14. Aurelian, a native of Pannonia, completed the work 
so nobly commenced by Claudius, and became the real restorer 
of the Roman empire. After a brief visit to Rome he marched 
against the Goths and their allies, and a battle having been 
fought on the banks of the Danube, in which neither party 
could claim a decisive victory, he concluded a peace, in 
which the province of Dacia was given up to the Goths. 
Tranquillity being thus restored in that quarter, he proceeded, 
in a. d. 272, to the East against Zenobia, and, after several 
victories over the queen, recovered Syria, while his legate 
Probus was equally successful in Egypt. In the following year 
he besieged Zenobia in her own capital of Palmyra, and, on the 
surrender of the city, made her his prisoner; but as the city 
soon after revolted, Aurelian ordered it to be destroyed. 
Having thus reunited Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt with 
the empire, he returned to Europe, and forthwith made war 
against Tetricus, who still maintained himself in Gaul. In 
a battle near Chalons, in a. d. 274, Tetricus, who did not feel 
safe among his own troops, went over to Aurelian, by whom 
he was kindly treated. The emperor returned to Rome, and 
celebrated a triumph, adorned by the presence of Zenobia, such 
as the city had not seen for a long time. He now endeavoured, 
by internal reforms, to ameliorate the condition of his subjects, 
and restore ancient morality and simplicity ; but his wise 
measures were not always well received by the demoralised 
people. It also gave offence that he assumed the diadem, which 
no emperor had done before him. In order to give occupation 
to his restless legions, he undertook an expedition against the 
Persians, who still defied the majesty of Rome; but in 
March a. d. 275, he was murdered, on his road between 


564 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


Heracleia and Byzantium, by bis own servants, wbo bad reason 
to fear bis severity. 

15. The soldiers not having a general of sufficient popu¬ 
larity among them, requested the senate to appoint a successor; 
but as emperors nominated by the senate had generally been 
rejected by the soldiers, the senate at first declined, and several 
months elapsed in correspondence, until in September the 
senate offered the imperial dignity to Claudius Tacitus, a vene¬ 
rable senator of the age of seventy-five. After his elevation he 
immediately proceeded to the East, where he was welcomed 
by the army. He repelled the Alani, who had invaded Cap¬ 
padocia, and advanced as far as mount Caucasus to carry on 
the war against the Persians, but in consequence of his exer¬ 
tions he was seized with an illness, of which he died on the 12th 
of April a. d. 276. His brother Annius Florianus assumed 
the imperial dignity, but scarcely three months later he was 
murdered by his own soldiers at Tarsus, as it became known 
that Tacitus had recommended Probus, the commander of the 
eastern forces, who was very popular among the soldiers. 
Probus' antecedents were very promising, and after his acces¬ 
sion to the empire, he displayed qualities both of a great 
general and an able ruler. After having paid a visit to Rome, 
he marched with a strong army into Gaul, a great part of 
which was occupied by the German tribes of the Franks, 
Lygians, Burgundians, and Yandals. He rescued sixty large 
towns from them, pursued them across the Rhine, and in 
Germany itself established Roman garrisons as colonies, 
securing the conquered country by a strong wall extending 
from Ratisbon to the banks of the Neckar and the Rhine. 
Having extended and secured the frontiers in that quarter 
and subdued some rebels in Gaul, he marched to Illyricum 
and Thrace, where he conquered the Sarmatians and the 
tribes of the Getae ; then crossing over into Asia Minor and 
restoring peace in some of its provinces, he advanced into 


TACITUS—PROBUS—CARUS. 


565 


feyria and Egypt. In the latter country lie expelled the 
Blemmyae, a Nubian tribe, which had made itself master of 
several towns, a. p. 279. The Persian king Narses, alarmed 
by the emperor’s success, concluded peace with him. From 
Egypt Probus returned to Thrace, and transplanted one 
hundred thousand Bastarnae and other tribes from the left 
bank of the Danube into Thrace. He then celebrated a 
great triumph at Rome over the Germans and Blemmyae. As 
peace was now restored in all parts of the empire, he began 
employing his armies in various useful works, such as the 
rebuilding of ruined towns, draining of marshes, and the like ; 
but the severity with which he exacted these services called 
forth a formidable insurrection, during which, in the month 
of September a. d. 282, the infuriated soldiers slew their 
excellent emperor, whose death they soon after deplored. 
He is said to have been the first to introduce the cultivation 
of the vine into Hungary and the countries on the Rhine. 

16. The legions now proclaimed Carus emperor. He 
was an able general, but too indulgent towards his two sons 
Carinus and Numerianus, on whom he conferred the dignity 
of Caesar. On receiving the news of the death of Probus, 
the Sarmatians invaded Thrace and Illyricum. Numerianus 
obtained the command against them and defeated them, while 
his brother was intrusted with the administration of the 
western provinces. In a. d. 283, Carus with Numerianus 
set out against the Persians, who were likewise preparing for 
war. The Romans were very successful: they ravaged Meso¬ 
potamia, took Seleucia and Ctesiphon, and even advanced 
beyond the Tigris, when suddenly Carus was killed by a flash 
of lightning, on the 25th of December a. d. 283. His sons 
were immediately recognised as emperors. Numerianus, who 
deserved to have lived in happier days, gave up the war with 
the Persians, and was murdered on his return, during a review 
of the troops, by his own father-in-law, in September a. d. 


5G6 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


284. The army at once proclaimed Diocletian, a Dalmatian, 
who was then prefect of the praetorians, emperor. Carinus, 
the profligate son of Cams, endeavoured to assert his claims, 
and set out against his rival, but near Margus in Serbia, he 
w’as killed by a man whose wife he had ill-used, in May 
a. d. 285, and the civil war was thus brought to a speedy 
termination. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

x j JL » J /f v-l «Q i • -v I * 1 

FROM THE ACCESSION OF DIOCLETIAN TO THE DIVISION OF 

THE EMPIRE. 

1. Diocletian, a man of humble origin, had worked his 
way up to the highest military stations by his prudence, 
talent, and ambition. His reign is particularly remarkable 
for the great changes he introduced in the administration of 
the empire. The despotism of the soldiers, who had until then 
appointed and deposed emperors, was put an end to, every 
trace of republican Rome which yet remained was done away 
with, and the spirit of the government and the character of 
the sovereign henceforth display much of what is commonly 
observed in eastern despotisms. From this time the seat of 
the government was no longer exclusively at Rome, but Nico- 
medeia became the capital for the eastern provinces, Milan 
for Italy and the countries on the south of it, Treves for 
Gaul, Britain, and Spain, and Sirmium for Pannonia and 
Illyricum. The religion of the ancient world also was fast 
hastening towards its final extinction, for Christianity had 
already extended far and wide. Diocletian was quite conscious 



DIOCLETIAN. 


567 


of the duties he had to perform ; but he also knew the dangers 
and difficulties he had to contend with, and in order to 
strengthen himself, assumed Maximian as his colleague in the 
imperial dignity. This man was a rude, but able soldier, 
and Diocletian, assigning to him the western parts of the 
empire, at once entrusted to him the war against the Gauls 
and Germans. In Gaul the Bagaudae, that is, the peasants, 
provoked by the oppression of their governors, had risen in 
arms against them; but Maximian defeated them in a. d. 
286. The Alemanni, who had invaded Raetia and the 
Gallic side of the Rhine, were driven back into their own 
country, which was ravaged by Maximian. It is about this 
time that we first hear of the Saxons, who infested the coasts 
of Britain and Gaul with their piratical fleets, and in con¬ 
junction with the Franks traversed and plundered the north 
of Gaul. Carausius, an experienced Belgian chief, w T as com¬ 
missioned by Maximian to protect the coasts against those 
German pirates, but as after a while he drew upon himself 
the suspicion of favouring the barbarians, Maximian ordered 
him to be put to death. But Carausius escaped into Britain, 
where he assumed in a. d. 287 the imperial dignity, allied him¬ 
self with the piratical Franks and Saxons, and maintained him¬ 
self until a. d. 293, when he fell by the hand of another usurper, 
Alectus, who ruled over Britain for a period of three years. 

2. While Maximian was thus engaged in Gaul and 
Germany, Diocletian carried on a successful war against the 
invaders in Raetia, and then proceeded to Nicomedeia, in 
Asia Minor, which he had chosen for his residence. Thinking 
that the two emperors were not sufficient to protect the empire 
against both domestic and foreign enemies, Diocletian, in a. d. 
292, nominated at Nicomedeia two Caesars, Constantius 
Chlorus and Galerius, both Illyrians, who by marriages con¬ 
nected themselves with the imperial families. The empire 
was then divided among the four rulers: Diocletian retained 


568 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


for himself the eastern provinces, Galerius obtained Thrace 
and the Danubian countries, Maximian Italy, Africa, and the 
western islands, while Constantius received Gaul, Spain, 
Britain, and Mauritania. The unity of the empire, however, 
was not affected by this division, for Diocletian was at the 
head of the whole, and in the internal administration none of 
his colleagues could undertake anything without his consent. 
The power of the praetorian guards was reduced, and Diocle¬ 
tian surrounded himself at Nicomedeia with all the pomp 
and ceremonial of an eastern despot. In the very year in 
which he divided his dominions, fresh enemies arose both 
within and without the empire : the Persians threatened to 
invade Syria, some African tribes in Mauritania revolted, and 
soon after, Julian came forward as a usurper in Italy, and 
Achilles in Egypt. But the usurpers were easily overcome by 
Maximian and Diocletian, and the former also subdued the 
Mauritanians. In a. d. 295, Galerius conquered the Carpi, 
in the neighbourhood of the Carpathian mountains, and other 
tribes in the countries about the Danube, and then proceeded 
against the Persians. He was at first not very successful, but 
in the following year, the Persians were compelled in a pitched 
battle to sue for peace, in which they gave up all Mesopo¬ 
tamia, and even certain provinces beyond the Tigris, a.d. 298. 
In the meantime Constantius expelled the Franks from Gaul 
and the country of the Batavi, crossed over into Britain, and, 
defeating the usurper Alectus, reunited, in a. d. 296, Britain 
with the empire, from which it had been separated for ten 
years. Constantius then returned to Gaul, and in a. d. 301, 
defeated the AJemanni near Lingonae. In a. d. 303, the 
four sovereigns met at Rome, where they celebrated a splendid 
triumph, and consulted for a long time about the means to 
be adopted to prevent the spreading of Christianity. An edict 
was issued ordering all the Christian churches to be destroyed, 
the sacred books to be burned, the priests to be thrown into 


GALERIUS. 


,569 


prison, and to use every means to extirpate the new religion. 
This decree, however, was not executed everywhere with the 
same rigour, especially in those parts where the mild and 
tolerant Constantius commanded. Shortly after this Diocle¬ 
tian was taken ill, and returned to Nicomedeia, where, on the 
first of May a. d. 305, he resigned his imperial dignity, and 
retired as a private person to his magnificent villa near Salonae, 
on the coast of Dalmatia. Maximian was obliged against his 
own inclination to take the same step at Milan on the same 
day. Diocletian died in a. d. 313. 

3. Immediately after the abdication of the two emperors, 
the two Caesars, Galerius and Constantius, were raised to the 
imperial dignity, and at once nominated two Caesars, Valerius 
Severus and Maximinus Daza, Italy and Africa being assigned 
to the former, and Egypt and Syria to the latter. Constan¬ 
tine and Maxentius, the sons of Constantius and Maximian, 
were passed over in this arrangement. But when Constantine 
heard that his father was ill at York, he hastened thither 
from Rome, and on the death of Constantius on the 25th 
of July a. d. 306, at once undertook the administration of the 
provinces of his father, and assumed the title of Caesar. 
Galerius, though reluctantly, recognised him in his assumed 
dignity, as he was very popular with the army. Galerius 
himself was so much detested at Rome, on account of his harsh¬ 
ness and cruelty, that the praetorians, once more availing them¬ 
selves of their ancient prerogative, proclaimed Maxentius, the 
son of Maximian, emperor, and as Maximian himself also 
resumed the purple, the empire all at once had six rulers, and 
civil wars were unavoidable. In a. d. 307, Severus marched 
into Italy against Maxentius, but being deserted by his 
soldiers, he was put to death at Ravenna by Maximian. 
Galerius, then greatly enraged, marched with an army into 
Italy, and conferred the title of Augustus or emperor on his 
friend Licinius. Maximinus, who governed Egypt and Syria, 


570 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


also assumed the title of Augustus. The old and ambitious 
Maximian, unable to maintain himself in Italy, fled to Con¬ 
stantine at Treves. But as he was planning his destruction, 
he was betrayed and fled to the south of Gaul; here he 
was obliged to surrender at Marseilles, a.d. 310, and hanged 
himself. In the following year, Galerius died in consequence 
of his excesses; Maxentius through his legates recovered 
Africa, where a usurper of the name of Alexander had started 
up, and then prepared for war against Constantine ; but the 
latter, anticipating him, invaded northern Italy, and defeated 
him in a great battle, A. d. 312, near a place called Saxa 
Rubra. Maxentius took to flight, and as he was riding across 
the Milvian bridge, his horse took fright and threw him into 
the Tiber, where he was drowned. Having secured the pos¬ 
session of Italy and Rome, Constantine hastened back to the 
Rhine, repelled the Franks, crossed the river, and caused a 
stone bridge to be built over it at Cologne. 

4. While Constantine was thus successfully engaged 
against the Germans, a war broke out in the East between 
Licinius, who had married a sister of Constantine, and 
Maximinus, the ally of Maxentius. Maximinus suffered a 
severe defeat at Adrianople, and was poisoned, a. d. 313, at 
Tarsus in Cilicia. Two sovereigns were now left, Constantine 
and Licinius, the former governing the West, and the latter the 
East. Peace might therefore have continued for some time, 
but the two emperors were equally ambitious, and equally 
faithless and crafty, and each was anxious to get rid of the 
other. Licinius took part in a conspiracy against Constantine, 
who, on being informed of it, began a war, a.d. 314, and 
defeated the troops of his rival in two battles, at Cibalge in 
Pannonia, and at Adrianople. A peace was then concluded, 
in which Licinius gave up to Constantine all Illyricum 
with Macedonia and Greece. There now followed a period 
of tranquillity, which lasted for seven years, and during 


CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 


571 


which Constantine regulated the administration of the empire, 
defeated the Goths, and received from them a corps of forty- 
thousand men into his service. After this Constantine again 
directed his arms against Licinius, who cruelly persecuted 
the Christians; the two armies met at Adrianople, and on 
the 3d of July a. d. 323, Licinius was completely defeated. 
He fled to Byzantium, whence he crossed over to Chalcedon, and 
being there beaten a second time, on the 18th of September, he 
surrendered to the conqueror, who stripped him of his purple, 
and promised to allow him to live in honourable retirement; but 
soon afterwards caused him to be strangled at Thessalonica. 

5. After these severe struggles, which had lasted many 
years, Constantine, surnamed the Great, was the sole ruler 
of the empire. His faithlessness, his boundless ambition, and 
the heartless cruelty he displayed towards his friends and 
nearest relations, render it impossible to rank him among the 
good rulers. Even the good he did in protecting the Chris¬ 
tian religion did not proceed from pure motives, but from 
a desire to promote his own interests, for Christianity did 
not affect his character and conduct. But he nevertheless 
exercised an enormous influence upon Europe, by raising Chris¬ 
tianity to the rank of the state religion, and by transferring 
the seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, which from him 
received its present name of Constantinople. He was at the 
same time the founder of the court despotism, which he sub¬ 
stituted for the military despotism, and of the hierarchy in 
the Christian church. 

6. Even while yet only Caesar in Gaul, Constantine, imi¬ 
tating the example of his father, had protected the Christians 
in that province and in Britain; during his war against Maxen- 
tius, he was induced, it is said, by the appearance of a cross 
in the sun, to adopt Christianity himself. In a. d. 313, he 
issued at Milan the memorable edict of toleration, which 
granted perfect religious liberty to all his subjects. The 


572 


HISTORY OF ROME, 


Christians thereby recovered their lost property, obtained 
access to the great offices of state, and permission to build 
churches. Christianity, which had even before been adopted 
by millions, now spread over all parts of the empire. Con¬ 
stantine himself was not drawn towards it by any inward 
desire, or by a conviction of its truth, but because he hoped 
by the help of the Christians to crush his opponents who were 
hostile to Christianity. The disputes between the Arians and 
followers of Athanasius about the nature of the Redeemer, 
offered Constantine an opportunity at the general council of 
Nicaea, a. d. 325, to interfere in matters of ecclesiastical law. 
It was at this council that what is called orthodoxy was first 
clearly defined. The pure and simple doctrines of Christ 
were more and more disfigured by decrees of councils; the 
clergy became more and more distinct from the laity; the 
church acquired great privileges, jurisdiction, large domains, 
well paid priests, a splendid outward ceremonial, until in 
the end the Christian religion sank down to a worship of 
images and relics. The bishop of Rome naturally claimed a 
higher power than his colleagues, and his pretensions were 
strengthened by the fact, that the barbarous nations in the 
north-western provinces readily submitted to the orders of 
the bishop of the great western capital. In this manner, 
and supported by the secular power of the emperors, the 
bishop of Rome was enabled gradually to develop the vast 
hierarchical system under which afterwards Europe groaned 
until the time of the Reformation. 

7. Rome, with all its ancient pagan and republican asso¬ 
ciations, was not a fit place for establishing the despotism of a 
Christian emperor, with his servile court ceremonial. Con¬ 
stantine accordingly selected Byzantium for the capital of the 
empire, which nature herself seems to have destined to be the 
seat of a great empire. The building and extension of the 
city occupied nearly ten years, from a. d. 325 till a.d. 334, and 


CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. 


573 


cost enormous sums of money. But more important still, was 
the entire change of the government and administration, which 
was introduced by Constantine. The changes were entirely 
of an oriental character; his object was to give unity and 
compactness to the empire, and to secure to the throne as its 
centre the supreme power in every respect. He accordingly 
divided the empire into four prefectures, fourteen dioceses, 
and one hundred and sixteen provinces. The first prefecture, 
that of the East, contained five dioceses, viz., the East, 
Egypt, Pontus, Asia, and Thrace, all of which formed forty- 
eight provinces. The second prefecture, or Illyricum, contained 
the dioceses of Macedonia and Dacia, forming together eleven 
provinces, including Greece and Crete ; the prefecture of 
Italy had three dioceses, Italy, the western part of Illyricum, 
with the countries south of the Danube, and Africa with the 
western islands of the Mediterranean, forming altogether 
twenty-nine provinces; the fourth prefecture, that of Gaul, 
forming three dioceses, Gaul, Spain, and Britain, contained 
twenty-eight provinces. Rome and Constantinople belonged 
to no prefecture, but had their own administration under 
prefects of the city. Each prefecture was governed by a 
praefectus praetorio , who had no military power ; the highest 
magistrate in a diocese was called vicarius , while the governor 
of a province bore the title of proconsul, consular, corrector, 
or praeses. The civil and military powers were completely 
separated, and it was therefore necessary to create a number 
of new military dignitaries, all of whom stood under a 
commander-in-chief, called magister utriusque militiae. The 
emperor’s court was constituted upon the model of that of 
Persia, and a vast number of court officials and dignitaries 
were appointed with a scrupulously distinguished gradation 
of rank. Consuls were still annually appointed both at Rome 
and at Constantinople, though the honour of the consulship 
was nothing but an expensive luxury. 


574 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


8. The new and expensive system of administration, with 
its numerous officials, rendered it necessary to increase the 
taxes. The severity with which they were exacted, and 
the unfairness with which they were distributed, were in 
many instances the source of much unhappiness and discon¬ 
tent in the various provinces of the empire. Another cir¬ 
cumstance which rendered an increase of the public revenue 
unavoidable, was the system of engaging mercenaries from 
among the barbarians, for at this time they formed the greater 
part of the Eoman armies. The empire had been in a state 
of recovery ever since the time of Diocletian, and things were 
still improving during the reign of Constantine, notwithstand¬ 
ing the extremely heavy taxes. For after the defeat of 
Licinius, the empire enjoyed peace until a. d. 332, when the 
Goths, under their king Araric, again crossed the Danube, 
and ravaged the country ; but they were driven back by 
Constantine ; and the Sarmatae, who had to suffer much from 
the Goths, were protected by the emperor, who in a. d. 334 
assigned habitations to three hundred thousand of them 
within the Roman empire, in Pannonia, Thrace, and Mace¬ 
donia. During the last years of his life, Constantine favoured 
the Arians, whom he had formerly condemned as heretics; 
this change in his mind had been brought about by the Arian 
bishop Eusebius of Nicomedeia, at whose hands he also received 
baptism when he felt the end of his life approaching, for he 
believed that baptism would wipe away at once all the sins 
of his life. He died on the 22d of May a. d. 337 in his 
palace near Nicomedeia, while he was occupied with prepara¬ 
tions against the Persians, who appear to have resolved to 
recover their lost provinces. 

9. Before his death, Constantine had divided the empire 
among his three sons, assigning Gaul to Constantine II., the 
East to Constantius, and Italy to Constans, while his two 
nephews, Dalmatius and Hannibalianus, who were raised to 


SONS OF CONSTANTINE. 


575 


the rank of Caesars, received Illyricum and the kingdoms of 
Armenia and Pontus. Constantius, after his father’s death, 
hastened to Constantinople, and caused or allowed all his 
relations to he put to death ; no one was spared except 
Gallus, who was ill, and Julianus, who was a mere boy. The 
three brother emperors then met and made a, new division of 
the empire, in which all Illyricum was added to the portion 
of Constans, and Africa was divided between him and Con¬ 
stantine. After this Constantius undertook with great vigour 
the war against Persia, for which his father had already made 
preparations, and which detained him nearly all the remainder 
of his life in Syria. Constantine II., who resided at Treves, 
not being satisfied with the empire assigned to him, and wish¬ 
ing to rob his brother Constans of Italy, marched southward 
with his army, hut in a. d. 340 he was defeated and killed 
near Aquileia, and his portion of the empire was taken pos¬ 
session of by Constans. Ten years later, Magnentius, a 
Frank, who had received a Eoman education, was raised to 
the rank of Augustus at Autun (Augustodunum) in Gaul, and 
found numerous adherents. Leaving Gaul to his brother 
Decentius, he marched into Italy; and Constans, whose vicious 
conduct had made him unpopular, both with the provincials 
and soldiers, was killed during his flight in a place at the 
foot of the Pyrenees. Magnentius thus became master of 
Italy. Simultaneously, Yetranio, a brave general, was raised 
by the army in Illyricum to the rank of Augustus ; but a few 
months later he abdicated, having received orders to do so 
from Constantius, who, leaving the management of the Persian 
war to Gallus, proceeded against the usurper Magnentius. In 
the neighbourhood of Mursa in Pannonia, he gained a victory, 
a. d. 351, whereupon Magnentius withdrew to Italy. But 
being unable to maintain himself, he put an end to his life, 
a. d. 353. 

10. Constantius was now the sole ruler of the empire; 


576 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


he was timid and suspicious, and completely under the control 
of women, eunuchs, and flatterers. He zealously engaged in 
the religious disputes of the time, though he did not adopt 
any fixed principles himself. While staying at Milan, he 
concluded a treaty with the Alemanni; and as Gallus, who 
had been raised to the rank of Caesar, displayed too much 
ambition in the East, Constantius summoned him to come to 
Italy, and ordered him to be killed on his journey at Pola in 
Istria, a. d. 354. A similar fate was hanging over Julian, 
hut the empress Eusebia averted it by her entreaties; and 
Julian was banished to Athens, where he occupied himself 
with the study of philosophy. Shortly after this, the valiant 
general Silvanus, who had acquired great fame in his war 
against the Germans, entered into connection with the 
Franks, and fearing the consequences of this step, assumed 
the title of Augustus at Cologne, in a. d. 355. But Ursi- 
cinus, a general of Constantius, and the historian Ammianus 
Marcellinus speedily put an end to his usurpation: he was 
dragged forth from a chapel and cut down by the soldiers. 
Constantius now recalled Julian, gave him his sister Helena to 
wife, and entrusted to him tho administration of Gaul, which was 
ravaged by the Germans, for the Franks had taken Cologne, 
and the Alemanni had destroyed Strassburg and Mayence. 
Julian, though he had not been brought up as a soldier, first 
defeated the Alemanni, and then advancing to the lower Rhine 
recovered Cologne : in a. d. 357 he gained a great battle near 
Strassburg, in consequence of which the whole line from Basle 
to Cologne was freed from the enemies, who had to purchase 
peace. This success roused the suspicion of Constantius, who 
had in the meantime been engaged against the Germans on 
the Danube, and was now preparing to take the command 
against the Persians, because his lieutenants were unsuc¬ 
cessful in the East. But when he demanded from Julian a 
portion of his forces, the soldiers, with whom Julian was very 


JULIAN THE APOSTATE. 


577 


popular, proclaimed him emperor, a. d. 360, at Paris, where 
he had his winter quarters. This honour he had well 
deserved by his moderation and justice during the adminis¬ 
tration of Gaul. Constantius rejected all offers to come to 
terms, and prepared for war. Julian therefore quickly set 
out and arrived in Illyricum, when unexpectedly Constantius 
died in Cilicia, on the 3d of November a. d. 361. 

11. Julian, surnamed the Apostate, was now sole Augustus. 
He owes his surname to the fact that, although brought up as a 
Christian, he renounced Christianity ten years before his acces¬ 
sion, and being disgusted with the unprofitable disputes of the 
Christians, their monastic tendencies, and other abuses, exerted 
himself to restore the ancient pagan religion of the Romans, 
though he was not averse to borrowing some things from the 
Christians by which he thought paganism might be improved; 
nor did he close the Christian churches, and in a. d. 363 he 
even allowed the Jews to rebuild their temple at Jerusalem. 
But fires bursting from the ground, and earthquakes, are said 
to have prevented the undertaking. Julian professed to 
imitate the conduct of Antoninus the philosopher, and set 
the example of abstinence and severity towards himself, in 
order to be able to demand the exercise of similar virtues 
from his subjects. He was thoroughly imbued with the spirit 
of the classical literature of Greece, and even during his most 
important engagements he never neglected the cultivation of 
his own mind, as we still see from his writings. But his 
opposition to Christianity was an attempt to turn the current 
of a mighty river; paganism could not for any length of time 
maintain itself against the Christian religion, which offered to 
oppressed humanity consolation for present sufferings, and a 
prospect of a better life to come. After a stay of about eight 
months at Constantinople, Julian set out against the Persians. 
He entered Mesopotamia with a large army, and gained a 
great victory near Ctesiphon. He and his army suffered much 


578 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


from want of provisions, the Persians having laid waste the 
country during their retreat; but he pursued his objects with 
undaunted spirit, until, on the 26th of June a. d. 363, he died 
of a wound, inflicted either by an enemy or by some incensed 
Christian. 

12. The army suffering severely from want in the desert 
steppes, and being hard pressed by the enemy, saluted Jovian 
as emperor. He was an intelligent and sincere professor of 
Christianity, though greatly addicted to sensual pleasures. The 
distressing circumstances in which the army was placed, ren¬ 
dered the conclusion of peace with the enemy unavoidable, 
however humiliating the terms were. The Persians thus 
recovered their five provinces beyond the Tigris, the great 
fortress of Nisibis, and other Mesopotamian towns. On his 
return to Constantinople Jovian died at Dadastana in Galatia, 
on the 16th of February a. d. 364. In his short reign the 
Christians recovered their former rights and privileges, though 
the pagans also enjoyed toleration. 

13. Ten days after the death of Jovian, the troops at 
Nicaea conferred the imperial dignity upon Yalentinian, a 
Pannonian, who soon afterwards assumed his brother Yalens 
as his colleague, and assigned to him the administration of the 
East, with Constantinople for his capital, while he himself 
undertook the government of the West. Yalentinian was a 

« 

wise and moderate ruler, permitting in religious matters every 
one to follow the dictates of his own conscience, but at the 
same time he was of an irascible temper. In a. d. 366, the 
Alemanni, who had again invaded Gaul, were repulsed by one 
of his generals, and in the following year the emperor, having 
recovered from a serious illness, raised his son Gratian to the 
rank of Augustus. At the same time the north of Roman 
Britain was much harassed by invasions of the Piets and Scots, 
against whom the ancient fortification of Antoninus was renewed. 
In a. d. 368, the Alemanni, under their chief Rando, sacked 


VALENTINIAN-VALENS. 


579 


and plundered the city of Mayence, which induced Valentinian, 
who was then residing 1 at Paris, to wage war against them. 
He drove them across the Rhine, and defeated them in their 
own country. The next years were mainly spent in fortifying 
the banks of the Rhine against similar incursions. In a. d. 
371, Saxon pirates infested the coasts of Gaul, and being sur¬ 
rounded by the Romans, were all treacherously cut to pieces, 
and at Treves Valentinian and his son Gratian, who had been 
carefully educated by the poet Ausonius, celebrated splendid 
triumphs over the barbarians, on which occasion the orator 
Symmachus proclaimed their exploits to the world. As the 
Quadi and Sarmatians had invaded Pannonia, Valentinian 
marched against them, and crossing the Danube fearfully 
ravaged their country, and butchered them without mercy. 
While in his winter quarters at Bregetio, some ambassadors 
of the Quadi appeared before him, and in his reply to them, 
he was seized with such a fit of anger, that he burst a blood¬ 
vessel, and died on the 17th of November a. d. 375. 

14. Meanwhile his brother Valens, a passionate, cruel, and 
intolerant prince, who persecuted all those who did not adopt 
the Arian creed, had in the very first year of his reign to con¬ 
tend with Procopius, who, while Valens was in Asia, had 
usurped the purple at Constantinople, and had gained over 
the Goths to his interest. But his successful career was cut 
short in a. d. 366, in a defeat which he sustained in Phrygia. 
In order to chastise the Goths for having supported the 
usurper, Valens crossed the' Danube and laid waste their 
country, until, in a.d. 370, the Visigoth Athanaric, being com¬ 
pletely exhausted, sought and obtained peace. Scarcely was 
tranquillity restored in that quarter, when the Persians inter¬ 
fered in the affairs of Armenia, which Valens took under his 
protection, though he did not venture to declare war. Being 
a zealous Arian, he caused the Arian doctrines to be preached 
to the Goths by their bishop Ulphilas, who is celebrated in 


580 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


history for having translated the Scriptures into the Moeso- 
Gothic language, for which purpose he contrived a Gothic 
alphabet based upon that of the Greeks. But the unfortunate 
Goths were not able to enjoy the blessings of Christianity in 
peace, for a terrible hurricane which swept over their country 
from the East, drove them from their homes on the Danube 
and the Black Sea. 

15. The commotions which were then going on in the 
interior of Asia form the beginning of what is generally 
called the migration of nations. The most formidable among 
these were the Huns, a Kalmuck or Mongol tribe, of ugly 
appearance (they are compared to walking lumps of flesh), 
which had from time immemorial traversed the steppes oi 
Asia as nomadic hordes, and had made conquests as far as 
China. After long wanderings, a portion of this race, in 
a. d. 375, crossed the Volga, the Don, the sea of Azof, and 
threw themselves upon the Alani, a part of the Goths. Un¬ 
able to resist the invaders, the Alani partly submitted to 
them, and partly escaped to mount Caucasus, where their 
descendants are said still to exist. The eastern Goths, or 
Ostrogoths, also called Guthrungi, dwelt between the lower 
Danube and the Dniestr along the Euxine, while the western 
or Visigoths occupied the banks of the Danube. The shock 
of the Huns first fell upon the Ostrogoths, whose king, being 
too weak to offer resistance, threw himself upon his own 
sword, leaving his kingdom a prey to the Huns. His suc¬ 
cessor Withimer, however, trying to oppose them, fell in 
battle, and his people withdrew to the Visigoths, whose king 
Athanaric determined to oppose the Huns; but he too was 
defeated, and escaped into the inhospitable Carpathian moun¬ 
tains. The Thervingi, a portion of the Visigoths, in a. d. 
376 implored the emperor Valens to assign to them within 
his empire the deserted districts of Moesia and Thrace. 
Valens granted their request on condition that, before crossing 


VALENS-GRATIAN-THEODOSIUS. 


581 


the Danube, they should give up their arms. A host of two 
hundred thousand men, with their wives and children, accord¬ 
ingly crossed the Danube. The sufferings of the Goths in the 
marshes and deserts of Moesia were immense, and their dis¬ 
tress was aggravated by the avarice of the Roman governors. 
Their prince Fritigern, irritated by the brutality of the 
Romans, called his people to arms, for they had evaded the 
demand to surrender them. The Goths then, accompanied 
by some Huns and Alani, fell upon the extensive plains of 
Thrace, devastating with fire and sword everything that 
came in their way between the Danube and the Helles¬ 
pont. At length Yalens marched with an army against 
them, but in a great battle near Adrianople, a. d. 378 , he 
suffered a severe defeat. He took refuge in a cottage, which 
was set on fire by the barbarians, and Yalens perished in the 
flames. Scarcely the third part of his army escaped. The 
whole country south of the Danube, including Thessaly and 
Greece, fell into the hands of the conquerors, the fortresses 
alone maintaining themselves. 

16. Gratian, the son of Yalentinian, had in the meantime 
signalised himself in Gaul against the Alemanni, and after 
having defeated them in a. d. 378 near Argentaria, and com¬ 
pelled them to conclude a peace, in which they promised to 
furnish a contingent to the Roman army, he was preparing 
to hasten to the assistance of his uncle Valens ; but being 
informed of his death, he raised Theodosius, a brave Spaniard, 
to the rank of Augustus, on the 16th of January a. d. 379, 
and assigned to him the prefectures of the East and of Illyri- 
cum. Theodosius soon crushed the Goths in Thrace, and 
his quick and energetic measures so much increased the 
respect of the barbarians for him, that after the death of Fri¬ 
tigern, Athanaric concluded peace with the empire, and wil¬ 
lingly furnished the Gothic auxiliary corps of forty thousand 
men, which had been instituted by Constantine the Great. 


582 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


The Visigoths now obtained permission to settle in Dacia and 
Moesia. In the meantime, Gratian in the West, guided by 
bishops and hated by his soldiers, gave himself up to pleasure 
rather than to his duties. The legions in Britain, a. d. 383, 
raised Maximus to the dignity of emperor, and having 
assembled a large army, crossed over into Gaul. Gratian 
being betrayed by his own troops, endeavoured to escape into 
Italy, but was overtaken and killed at Lyons on the 25th of 
August a. d. 383. Maximus, although he obtained from 
Theodosius the title of Augustus, on condition of his not 
molesting young Valentinian II., who had been made Augus¬ 
tus in a. d. 375, when he was only four years old, neverthe¬ 
less invaded Italy, where Valentinian was residing, and 
occupied the passes of the Alps, a.d. 387. Valentinian, with 
his mother Justina, fled to Theodosius at Thessalonica, who now 
married Galla, a sister of Valentinian, though he had two sons, 
Arcadius and Honorius, by his first wife, -who had died. In a. d. 
388 Theodosius set out against the faithless usurper Maximus, 
who was delivered up by his own soldiers and put to death. 
Theodosius then went to Rome and appointed Arbogastes, a 
distinguished Frank, counsellor and guide of young Valen¬ 
tinian. Arbogastes after this was the real sovereign of the 
West, but Valentinian being anxious to get rid of his trouble¬ 
some adviser, transferred his residence to Vienne on the 
Rhone, where soon after, on the 15th of May a. d. 392, he 
was murdered, probably at the instigation of Arbogastes. 
The cunning Frank, in order not to appear himself as a 
usurper, raised the learned and eloquent Eugenius to the 
imperial dignity ; but in a. d. 394 Theodosius broke up from 
Constantinople on an expedition against Arbogastes and 
Eugenius, and both were defeated near Aquileia: Eugenius 
was made prisoner and beheaded, and Arbogastes committed 
suicide. Theodosius now was the sole ruler of the empire, 
but four months later he died at Milan on the 17th of 
January a. d. 395. 


THEODOSIUS I. 


583 


17. Although Theodosius had managed the affairs of the 
empire with vigour and energy, yet the necessity of increas¬ 
ing the taxes threw a heavy burden upon the provinces, which 
had become depopulated and miserably devastated. In addi¬ 
tion to this the empire was shaken by the passionate zeal 
w r hich Theodosius displayed against the Arians in the East and 
against the pagans, who, not daring to show their faces in the 
towns and cities, lived for the most part in retired country 
places ( pagi ), whence their name pagani or pagans. Bands 
of fanatic monks wandered about from place to place, destroy¬ 
ing with impunity the finest monuments of ancient art, and 
contributing as much as they could towards bringing about 
what are called the dark ages. The great emperor himself 
humbly submitted to the penance imposed on him by the 
stern Ambrose, bishop of Milan. When the usurper Maxi¬ 
mus had left Britain, that province, being no longer protected 
by Roman garrisons, was given up to the inroads of the Piets 
and Scots. From time to time small armies were indeed 
sent into the island, but they were unable to afford it any 
efficient protection, and the native Britons, who had become 
unwarlike under the Roman dominion, now were an easy prey 
to other conquerors. 


CPIAPTER XX. 

FROM THE DIVISION OF THE EMPIRE, TO THE OVERTHROW 
OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 

1. Before his death Theodosius had divided the empire 
between his two sons, Arcadius and Honorius. The former 
being a youth of only eighteen years, was placed under the 



584 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


guardianship of Rufinus, a Gaul, and was to govern the 
eastern part of the empire, with Constantinople for his resi¬ 
dence. Honorius, who was only eleven years old, had 
received Flavius Stilicho, a Vandal, for his guardian, and 
was to govern the western parts of the empire, having his 
residence at Rome or Ravenna. The line of demarcation 
between the two divisions of the empire was formed by the 
Danube, so far as its course is from north to south, that is, 
from Waitzen to the mouth of the Drave; then by the river 
Drino Blanco, which flows from the mountains of Macedonia 
towards the Save ; while farther south the frontier was a line 
drawn through Scutari towards the head of the great Syrtis on 
the coast of Africa. Theodosius had not intended by this 
division to abolish the unity of the empire, but the internal 
condition of the two parts under existing circumstances could 
not but lead to a permanent separation of the two empires, 
and thus accelerate the downfall of the western half, which 
was more exposed to attacks from without, and internally 
more decayed than the other. The policy of the eastern 
court, moreover, was to avert the attacks of the barbarians 
by directing them to the provinces of the west. Constanti¬ 
nople, lastly, was safer by its position and its fortifications 
than Rome, and able to defend and maintain itself even 
when all the provinces around it were in the hands of 
enemies. 

2. Honorius, who was of a sickly constitution and too 
young to take a part in public matters, remained in his palace 
at Ravenna enjoying and amusing himself, while the empire 
was threatened on the Rhine and Danube by invasions of 
barbarians. The administration and defence of the empire 
were left to Stilicho, the ablest man both at the court and in 
the camp. Perceiving the disadvantages of the separation of 
the empires at a time when unity was most needed, he 
attempted to reunite the two parts, but this involved him in 


HONORIUS-STILICHO. 


585 


an unfortunate quarrel with Rufinus. The Visigoths, then 
governed by their bold king Alaric, invaded Greece and 
devastated Thrace. Stilicho, indeed, offered his assistance 
to the eastern empire, but it was declined, because Rufinus 
suspected him. Stilicho, deeply mortified at this, caused 
Rufinus to be murdered by the Gothic troops stationed at 
Constantinople, on the 27th of November a. d. 395. But 
his successor, the eunuch -Eutropius, and Gainas, the com¬ 
mander of the Goths in the eastern capital, now openly 
declared against Stilicho. The Goths under Alaric in the 
meantime traversed Greece, laying desolate the whole country, 
with the exception of Athens, and advanced even as far as 
Sparta. In a. d. 397 Stilicho went across, and surrounded 
them in Arcadia, but owing to the carelessness of his officers, 
they escaped to Epirus. Arcadius, in order to propitiate the 
formidable Alaric, made him commander of eastern Illyricum, 
and declared Stilicho an enemy of the empire. At the same 
time Eutropius induced Gildo, the commander in Africa, to 
revolt from Honorius, with the view to gain Africa for the 
eastern empire. But the attempt failed, and in a. d. 398 the 
rebel was defeated and killed. Stilicho then went to Raetia 
and Gaul for the purpose of either maintaining or restoring 
friendly relations with the German tribes in the neighbour¬ 
hood. 

3. After these events, Italy suffered all the miseries that can 
be inflicted on a country invaded by hordes of rude and rapa¬ 
cious barbarians. Alaric the Visigoth was commissioned to carry 
into effect the sentence which had been pronounced against 
Stilicho, and in a. d. 402 he undertook his first expedition; but, 
probably induced by bribes, returned after his arrival before 
the strong fortress of Aquileia. In a. d. 403, however, he 
returned and plundered the country about the Po, the towns 
alone offering resistance. All Italy was in alarm ; Honorius 
protected himself at Ravenna, and the Romans began putting 


586 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


their walls in a state of defence. But Stiliclio quickly 
assembled an army in Raetia, and advanced against Alarie, 
whom he overtook near Pollentia. The success of the Romans 
was insignificant, although the poets Claudian and Prudentius 
composed poems in praise of Stilicho’s victory. Alaric had 
so much frightened the Romans, that Honorius concluded a 
treaty with him, in which he gave up the western part of 
Illyricum and promised to pay him an annual tribute. Scarcely 
had Alaric quitted Italy, when a new and fearful invasion 
increased the sufferings of the Italians. In a. d. 406 the 
Gothic chief Radagaisus, accompanied by a host of two hundred 
thousand men, partly Goths and partly other Germans, being 
pressed onward by hordes from Asia, poured into Lombardy from 
the Alps. Stilicho surrounded and defeated them near Faesulae; 
the greater part of the barbarians w T ere taken prisoners, and Rada¬ 
gaisus was killed during his flight. But as Stilicho had been 
obliged for the purpose of protecting Italy to withdraw all the 
garrisons from Gaul, the Rhine was crossed by the Vandals, 
Alani, Burgundians, and Alemannians: horde followed upon 
horde, the towns on the Rhine were destroyed, and in a. d. 407 
nearly the whole of Gaul, where the invaders w T ere joined by 
the unfortunate Bagaudae, was ravaged. At the same time 
Constantine, a common soldier, usurped the imperial purple in 
Britain, and crossing over to the continent succeeded in sub¬ 
duing Gaul and Spain. Honorius being quite powerless, was 
obliged to recognise his usurped power. 

4. As the tribute promised to Alaric was not paid, he 
appeared in a. d. 408 again on the frontiers of Italy demanding 
payment. The senate assembled to deliberate, and Stilicho 
advised the members to adhere to the promise made to the 
Goths, and pay the tribute. Some personal enemy suggested 
to the timid Honorius that Stilicho had probably entered into 
an understanding with Alaric in order to secure the succession 
to his son Euclierius. Upon this the credulous emperor ordered 


.ALARIC. 


587 


Stiliclio, whose daughter was married to him, to be murdered 
on the 23d of August a. d. 408. All his relations and friends 
were likewise put to death, and with a senseless cruelty, the 
emperor ordered the wives and children of thirty thousand Ger¬ 
mans who served in the Roman army to he murdered. These 
soldiers, infuriated with rage, at once went over to Alaric, 
who, not obtaining the money he demanded, and hearing 
of Stilicho's fate, vowed to avenge him and crossed the Po. 
He straightway proceeded to Rome, which he commenced 
besieging. Famine and disease at length obliged the Romans 
to capitulate. Alaric "was induced by a vast quantity of gold, 
silver, silk, and pepper, to depart. Some other promises which 
had been made, not being fulfilled, Alaric, reinforced by the 
troops of Adolphus, his brother-in-law, returned in a. d. 409 
against Rome; he occupied Ostia, and compelled the terrified 
Romans to proclaim Attalus, the city prefect, emperor. The 
Goths then entered Rome, and Alaric undertook the supreme com¬ 
mand of the new emperor’s forces, whereby he virtually possessed 
the sovereign power. Honorius still clinging to his post offered 
to share the imperial dignity with Attalus. When Alaric found 
that the emperor of his own choice proved an obstacle in his 
way, he stripped him of his purple in presence of the whole army, 
and attempted to come to an understanding with Honorius; 
but as his terms were not accepted, he gave vent to his rage 
and marched against Rome, which he took for the third time 
on the 24th of August a. d. 410. Although he wished to 
spare the city, the Goths plundered it and destroyed some 
parts by fire. Galla Placidia, the sister of Honorius, fell into 
Alaric’s hands, and he carried her with him as a hostage; 
after three days he left the city and marched southward with 
the intention of sailing to Sicily and Africa. But on his 
march thither he died at Cosenza. 

5. Alaric was succeeded by Adolphus, who led the troops 
back in the hope of making Rome the seat of his government. 


588 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


Placidia, who had been intrusted to his keeping, dissuaded 
him, and advised him to make peace with her brother. Two 
years thus passed away in negotiations, after which Adolphus, 
evacuating Italy, marched with his Goths into Gaul, where 
some usurpers had started up. The brave general Constantius 
easily put them down, and also made the emperor Constantine 
his prisoner, and put him to death, a. d. 411. Constans, a 
son of Constantine, still maintained himself at Vienne, but 
was soon after killed. All Gaul was thus recovered for' 
Honorius, but Jovinus, supported by the Burgundians, assumed 
the purple at Mayence. Adolphus at first made common 
cause with him, but in the end he turned his arms against 
him, made him his prisoner, and sent him captive to a general 
of Honorius. A definite peace was at length concluded 
between Adolphus and Honorius, and the former, marry¬ 
ing Placidia, took up his residence in Gaul. But notwith¬ 
standing the peace, Constantius, the conqueror of Constantine, 
in a. d. 414, took up arms against Adolphus, and expelled 
him from Gaul. Adolphus then went to Barcelona in Spain, 
where in the following year he w r as murdered by one of his 
own servants. After an interval of a few days Wallia 
succeeded Adolphus, and became the founder of the empire 
of the Visigoths, of which Toulouse was the capital, and which 
continued to flourish, until in a. d. 711 it was destroyed by 
the Arabs. It extended at first from the Garonne to the 
Ebro, but subsequently embraced the whole of Spain. Placidia 
married Constantius, whom Honorius in a. d. 421 made his 
colleague in the empire. Constantius, however, died soon 
after at Bavenna; after his withdrawal from Gaul, the Franks 
and Burgundians made themselves masters of the country 
without any opposition. The Burgundians founded an empire 
extending over the fertile fields of the Bhone, about mount 
Jura and the countries on the upper and middle Bhine. The 
Franks, from wdiom the country derives its modern name, 


PLACIDIA. 


589 


established themselves in the northern parts of Gaul. Britain 
had been left almost entirely to itself ever since the usurpation 
of Constantine ; but in a. d. 426 the last garrisons were 
withdrawn, and the country was left to the invasions of the 
Saxons, Piets, and Scots. Thus one province of the empire 
was lost after another, while Honorius spent his time in indo¬ 
lence at Ravenna until his death in a. d. 423. 

6. Placidia had incurred the displeasure of her brother; 
at his death she was still staying at Constantinople with 
her son Valentinian, and as Honorius had made no arrange¬ 
ments about a successor, bis private secretary Joannes assumed 
the purple at Ravenna. Arcadius, the emperor of the East, 
had died in a. d. 408, and was succeeded by Theodosius II., 
a boy of seven years, in whose name Anthemius, the praefectus 
praetorio , managed the affairs of the state with great prudence 
and wisdom. On the usurpation of Joannes, Theodosius II. 
raised Valentinian III., Placidia's son, then only six years old, 
to the imperial throne of the West, and sent an army against 
the usurper, who was defeated and put to death at Aquileia 
in a. d. 425. For a period of twenty-five years Placidia 
managed the affairs of the empire in the name of her son Valen¬ 
tinian, but she was neither able to preserve nor restore anything 
during the general confusion of the time. Weakness was com¬ 
bined with demoralisation, and in the midst of plague, famine, 
and the ravages of barbarians, the Romans recklessly plunged 
into enjoyments and pleasures. The best provinces of the 
empire were lost. We have already noticed that Britain was 
finally given up in a. d. 426, notwithstanding the entreaties 
of the inhabitants, who were hard pressed by the Piets and 
Scots, so that in the end they were obliged to call in the 
assistance of the Angles and Saxons, two German tribes 
occupying the banks of the Elbe. The assistance was granted, 
but the Saxons being followed by other tribes, and being 
unwilling to quit Britain, turned against the natives, and 


590 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


permanently established themselves in Britain, about a. d. 
449. 

7. In Africa, the governor Bonifacius, against whom the 
ambitious general Aetiushad roused the suspicion of Placidia, 
was recalled; but thinking that his life was endangered, 
he refused obedience, and, a. d. 429, invited Genseric, king 
of the Vandals, who had been established in Spain ever 
since a. d. 409, to come over wnth an army to assist him. 
Genseric with a host of eighty thousand barbarians, men, 
women, and children, crossed over into Africa. When at 
length the innocence of Bonifacius became known, and he 
wished to induce the Vandals to return to Spain, he found it 
impossible. He himself was defeated by them in a battle, 
and besieged at Hippo, where his friend St. Augustin died 
during the siege, a. d. 430. The whole province of Africa 
fell into the hands of those formidable barbarians, whose 
ravages in Spain and Africa have made their name proverbial. 
The fortresses Hippo, Cirta, and Carthage, maintained them¬ 
selves for a time against them; but Bonifacius, after repeated 
defeats, went to Placidia, who received him kindly. Aetius 
his enemy was now obliged to quit the court, and went to 
the Huns, with whom he had already had some transactions 
during the short reign of the usurper Joannes. Supported by 
an army of Huns, he returned to Italy, and as Bonifacius 
died soon after, Placidia felt herself obliged to restore him, in 
a. d. 433, to the office of commander-in-chief. But as it was 
impossible to continue the w^ar against Genseric, Placidia, in 
a. d. 435, concluded peace with him, in which she formally 
ceded to him a part of Africa. Carthage still continued to 
belong to Rome, but, in a. d. 439, Genseric took the city by 
surprise, and treated its inhabitants most cruelly. After this 
the war between the Romans and Vandals was still carried on 
for several years, and during that period the coasts of Sicily 
and Italy suffered severely, for the barbarians were excellent 


BATTLE OF CHALONS. 


591 


sailors, and kept up a powerful fleet. At length, in a. d. 442, 
the emperor Yalentinian, finding himself disappointed in his 
hope of support from the East, again concluded a treaty with 
Genseric, in which Africa, with the exception of Mauritania 
and western Numidia, was given up to the Vandals. Thus 
commenced the great empire of the Vandals in Africa, which 
continued to flourish as a maritime power for more than a 
century. But notwithstanding the peace, the barbarians con¬ 
tinued their piratical expeditions by sea in all directions. 

8. At that time, the Huns, under their king Attila, dwelt 
in Hungary, on the Danube, and in the plains of the Theiss. 
Attila was the terror of many kings and nations. In a. d. 
441, he broke up with his hordes, many German tribes being 
obliged to join him, crossed the Danube, ravaged Moesia, and 
destroyed many towns. A similar invasion was made in a. d. 
447, and on that occasion he carried his devastations as far 
as Constantinople and Thessaly. The emperor Theodosius had 
to purchase peace at an enormous price of the rapacious Hun, 
who treated the emperor and his ambassadors with great 
insolence. Being determined to crush both empires, Attila, 
in a. d. 451, advanced towards the Rhine, which his forces 
crossed in several detachments. Many towns on the river, 
were reduced to ashes ; the king of the Burgundians was 
defeated and Orleans besieged. The Romans, under the able 
command of Aetius, had united with the Visigoths and other 
German inhabitants of Gaul, such as the Burgundians, the 
Alani, and the Franks in the north, when the Huns advanced 
towards the river Marne. A most bloody battle in the plains 
near Chalons decided the fate of Gaul and of Europe. The 
Huns were defeated chiefly through the valour of the Visigoth 
Theodoric, and after his fall, through that of his brave son Toris- 
mund. One hundred and sixty-two thousand dead are said to 
have covered the field of battle, and the surviving Huns returned 
to the regions whence they had come. But undismayed by 


592 


HISTORY OF ROME 


this loss, Attila, in the following year, a. d. 452, invaded Italy 
from Pannonia, probably invited by the licentious Honoria, a 
sister of Yalentinian, who is said to have offered Attila her 
hand. He accordingly demanded her for his wife and a part of 
Italy as her portion. Aquileia was razed to the ground, and its 
inhabitants who escaped the sword are said to have taken refuge 
in the lagunes, and there to have built the town of Venice. 
Many other flourishing cities of Lombardy fell into the 
hands of the barbarians. Valentinian had no army to defend 
Italy, and Eome was in the greatest terror. An embassy, 
headed by the Roman bishop Leo I., was despatched wdth rich 
presents to Attila, and at length induced him to depart. He 
did so, however, persisting in his demand that Honoria should 
be given up to him, and threatening to return if this were not 
complied with. On his way back he once more invaded Gaul, 
but Torismund and the Visigoths hastened to the assistance of 
the Alani, and defeated the Huns, whereupon they returned to 
the Danube. In the following year, a. d. 453, Attila suddenly 
died, and as the terror of his name no longer kept the nations 
together which he had united under his terrible rule, they, but 
especially the Gepidae, Ostrogoths, Suevi, and Heruli, made 
themselves free. The Ostrogoths obtained habitations between 
Sirmium and Vindobona. Scarcely had Aetius averted the 
great danger from the empire, when the voluptuous and 
superstitious Valentinian began to suspect him, and in a. d. 
454 plunged his sword into the breast of the only general 
capable of saving his empire. Soon after a conspiracy w r as 
formed against Valentinian himself, in consequence of which 
he was murdered on the 16th of March a. d. 455. 

In the East, Theodosius II. had died in a. d. 450, after 
a reign remarkable only for the formation of the Codex 
Theodosianusj which was drawn up by his command in a. d. 
438, and contains all the constitutions of the emperors from 
the time of Constantine the Great. His daughter Pulcheria 


VANDALS IN ROME. 


593 


married Marcianus, who was declared emperor, and reigned 

till a. d. 457. 

9. After the murder of Valentinian, nine emperors suc¬ 
ceeded one another in rapid succession, and the tottering 
remnant of the empire was kept together only by barbarian 
mercenaries. The day after the murder of Valentinian, his 
murderer Maximus assumed the purple, and forced his widow 
Eudoxia to marry him. In order to avenge herself, she 
invited, it is said, Genseric to come to Italy to assist her. 
The Vandal landed with a large fleet at Porto, near the 
mouth of the Tiber, and marched towards Rome. All who 
could make their escape took to flight, and the emperor him¬ 
self would have run away had not a formidable insurrection 
broken out, during which he was slain by a soldier. His body 
was torn to pieces and thrown into the Tiber. After this, 
about the beginning of June a. d. 455, the Vandals entered 
Rome, and for fourteen days plundered and sacked it. All 
the remaining treasures of the imperial palaces, the temples, 
and the houses of the nobles, and everything which was 
thought worth carrying away, were seized by the barbarians 
and conveyed to Africa. A whole shipload of bronze statues 
perished on their way to Carthage. The principal churches 
and buildings themselves, however, were spared, and a few 
houses only were destroyed by fire during those days of terror. 
Several thousand prisoners, and among them the empress 
Eudoxia and a number of senators, were carried to Africa. 
After the departure of the Vandals, who during their stay also 
plundered and ravaged Capua, Nola, and all Campania, the 
populace of Rome was diverted by games in the Circus, and 
forgot its wretchedness. 

10. In the meantime, the north-western part of Gaul was 
seized upon by Franks from the country of the Batavi and 
the lower Rhine; but the Roman commander riEgidius still 

maintained himself with his army in the neighbourhood of 

2 Q 


594 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


Soissons, though he was surrounded by Goths, Burgundians, 
Alemannians, and Franks. His son Syagrius also continued to 
reign as an independent Roman prince in the same district, until 
in a. d. 486 he was attacked by the great Frankish king 
Clovis, who in the battle of Soissons destroyed the last 
remnant of the Roman dominion in Gaul. At the time of the 
murder of Maximus, the imperial general Avitus was staying 
at Toulouse with Theodoric II., who on learning the fate of 
the emperor urged him to assume the purple and promised 
him his assistance. Avitus accordingly caused himself to be 
proclaimed emperor on the 10th of July A. d. 455. The 
Gallic legions at Arles at once recognised the new emperor; 
but when soon afterwards he entered Italy, he was arrested 
at Placentia, a conspiracy having been formed against him by 
the powerful general Ricimer. In consequence of this, Avitus 
was obliged to abdicate on the 16th of October a. d. 456. 
This Ricimer, who was descended from Wallia, the king of the 
Visigoths, and had defeated the fleet of Genseric, being the 
commander of the foreign mercenaries in the pay of the 
Romans, henceforth disposed at his pleasure of the imperial 
throne for a period of sixteen years, but at the same time 
endeavoured to protect the empire against the Vandals, Alani, 
Ostrogoths, and Franks. 

11. After the abdication of Avitus, the throne of the 
western empire remained unoccupied for more than a twelve- 
month, until at the end of a. d. 457, Majorian, a friend of 
Ricimer, was invested with the purple at the request of the 
senate and people of Rome. Majorian was a brave soldier, who 
fought against the Burgundians in Gaul, and the Vandals in 
Africa, and did his best to promote the good of the yet 
remaining provinces of the empire. He equipped a large 
fleet against Genseric, and in a. d. 460 proceeded to Spain, in 
order to cross over into Africa and attack the Vandals in their 
own country. But they contrived treacherously to intercept 


ANTHEMIUS. 


595 


a large part of the transports, and thus frustrated the whole 
undertaking. On his return to Rome, Ricimer caused him to he 
deposed, a. d. 461, and soon afterwards ordered him to he put 
to death. Thereupon Ricimer, on the 19th of November a. d. 
461, proclaimed Libius Severus, a man not distinguished for 
anything, emperor at Ravenna, hut carried on the government 
himself in the name of the nominal emperor. While these 
things were going on in Italy, iEgidius in Gaul, and Marcel- 
linus in Dalmatia, made themselves independent of the 
empire, and governed their respective provinces as kings. 
Severus died in a. d. 465, either from poison or by his ow r n 
hand, and Ricimer, without assuming the title of emperor, 
ruled as sovereign, until, with the consent of the eastern 
emperor Leo, the Greek patrician Anthemius was declared 
emperor of the West, a. d. 467. In order to secure Ricimer, 
the new emperor gave him his daughter in marriage. As the 
Vandals still continued by their piratical expeditions to cause 
fearful devastations, not only in Sicily and Italy but in Greece, 
the emperor Leo of Constantinople resolved, in conjunction 
with Anthemius, to strike a decisive blow at them. Pre¬ 
parations wrnre made upon a gigantic scale. The main army 
had already landed in Africa, and gained some advantages 
over the barbarians, when, through the folly or treachery of 
the general Basiliscus, a truce of five days was granted to 
Genseric, who, availing himself of the respite, attacked the 
Greek fleet during the night with a number of fireships, and 
having destroyed half of it, compelled the rest to take to 
flight, a. d. 468. After the defeat of this great undertaking 
Genseric was enabled with impunity to continue his devas¬ 
tations of both the western and eastern empires. Anthemius 
then fought, though unsuccessfully, in Gaul, against Euric, 
the king of the Visigoths, who subdued the Roman cities in 
Gaul and Spain, which still recognised the supremacy ci 
Romo. 


596 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


12. In A. d. 472 the ambition of Ricimer was the cause of 
a civil war between him and Anthemius, in which the latter 
lost his life on the 11th of July. Ricimer took Rome by 
assault, and on the following day proclaimed Olybrius, a brother- 
in-law of Valentinian III., emperor. This civil w r ar lasted 
only three months, but Rome suffered most severely from 
famine, epidemics, conflagrations, murders, and rapine. On the 
20th of August of the same year, Ricimer died, and as there was 
no one ambitious enough to seek to be invested with the purple, 
Gundobald, king of the Burgundians, caused Glycerius, a brave 
general, to be proclaimed emperor at Ravenna, a.d. 473. The 
court of Constantinople, however, not recognising him, con¬ 
ferred the dignity upon Julius Nepos, a prince of Dalmatia, 
who, in the month of May a. d. 474, took his rival prisoner, 
and made him bishop of Salona; but he in his turn was 
dethroned, in a.d. 475, by Orestes, who revolted in Gaul, 
whither he had been sent to settle a peace with the Visigoths. 
Nepos fled into Dalmatia, and Orestes by the votes of the 
soldiers conferred the imperial dignity upon his son Romulus, 
who on account of his youth was surnamed Augustulus. 

13. The numerous bodies of German mercenaries and allies 
in Italy, among whom Heruli, Rugii, Scyrri, Turcilingi, and 
Goths are mentioned, were commanded by Odoacer, a chief of the 
Scyrri, and a man distinguished both for bodily strength 
and intelligence. When Romulus Augustulus was proclaimed 
emperor, the soldiers demanded as a reward for their services 
that a third of the land in Italy should be assigned to them 
as their property. As Orestes, who spoke in the name of his 
son, refused to grant their request, all the German troops in 
Italy assembled under the banners of Odoacer; they besieged 
Orestes in the strong fortress of Pavia, and having made him 
their prisoner, put him to death, on the 28th of August, 
a. d. 476, at Placentia. Ravenna also fell into the hands of 
the conquerors, and the helpless Romulus Augustulus, whose 


FALL OF THE WESTERN EMPIRE. 


597 


life Odoacer spared on account of liis youth, resigned his 
dignity of his own accord. Hereupon Odoacer, accepting the 
title of king of Italy, offered to him by his soldiers, though 
he did not use it among the Homans, for whom it was not 
suited, sent an ambassador to the court of Constantinople, 
intimating that Home no longer required an emperor, and 
demanding for himself the title of patrician and prefect of the 
diocese of Italy. 

14. Thus ended the Roman empire of the West. Augustulus 
received a handsome annuity and withdrew to an estate in Cam¬ 
pania, where he spent the remainder of his life in quiet retire¬ 
ment. All Italy fell into the hands of the German soldiers, and 
Odoacer reigned for a period of fourteen years, during which 
the unfortunate country gradually recovered from its previous 
sufferings. But in a. d. 489 the kingdom of Odoacer was 
conquered by Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, who in a. d. 
500 was recognised by the emperor of the East and entered 
Home in triumph. The eastern empire, where Marcianus had 
been succeeded by Leo I. (a. d. 457-474) and Zeno (a. d. 474- 
491), continued its existence for nearly a thousand years 
longer, but its history is that of a corrupt and contemptible 
court, in which only a few noble characters shine forth among 
the crowd of imbecile voluptuaries and tyrants. 

15. During the last hundred years the state of the west and 
south of Europe, if we except Greece, had gradually become 
quite different from what is generally understood by the name 
ancient, for paganism had given w r ay to Christianity, and Rome 

i 

had ceased to be mistress of the world. We cannot describe the 
changes which had been wrought in that part of Europe better 
than by saying that it had been Christianised and Germanised. 
The countries which Home had ruled over during the previous 
five hundred years, and even Italy itself, had been invaded and 
conquered by barbarians of the Teutonic race, who established 
in Britain, Gaul, Spain, the south of Germany, Italy, and the 


598 


HISTORY OF ROME. 


north of Africa, new and independent kingdoms, and laid the 
foundations of an entirely new state of things. Those countries 
which had experienced all the blessings and all the curses of 
Roman civilisation, and had sunk with the empire into vice 
and wretchedness, were violently shaken and ravaged by the 
conquering barbarians, who in many instances destroyed almost 
every vestige of the ancient civilisation. But they could not 
destroy everything, for it is a law of history that, wherever a 
barbarous nation conquers a civilised people and rules over it, 
the barbarians gradually adopt the civilisation of the conquered, 
and become absorbed by them. Hence the Teutonic tribes 
in Gaul, Spain, and Italy soon became Romanised, adopting 
the language, customs, and laws of the conquered people ; 
hence even at the present day these countries form the links 
which connect our modern civilisation with that of the Roman 
empire, and their languages still are living monuments of the 
dominion of Rome. But the infusion of Teutonic blood into 
the demoralised and effete populations of south-western 
Europe was the beginning of their regeneration. This 
process was a slow one during the first thousand years, and 
could not be otherwise, so long as the spiritual tyranny 
exercised by the papacy over all Christendom kept the human 
mind in bondage. But ever since that bondage was broken in 
the sixteenth century, the advance of civilisation has been 
prodigious, and has at the present day reached a point which 
in many respects is much superior to that of any country in the 
ancient world. We should, however, learn modesty from the 
reflection that, with the example of the ancients before it, 
so many centuries have been spent before modern Europe 
reached the point at which it could stand any comparison with 
the wonderful civilisation attained by many of the ancient 
nations more than two thousand years ago. 


CHEONOLOGICAL TABLE 


♦ 



THE ISRAELITES. 


* b.c. 4004 
* 2400 
2000 
1921 
1491 
1451 
1426 
1128-1096 
1095 
1055 
1015 
1012 
976 


Creation of man. 

The Deluge. 

Abraham. 

Joseph in Egypt. 

The Exodus. 

Death of Moses. 

Death of Joshua. 

Samuel, the last of the Judges. 

Saul, anointed king of Israel. 

Death of Saul, and accession of David. 

Solomon succeeds David. 

Commencement of the Temple. 

Death of Solomon. Revolt of the Ten Tribes. Judah and IsraoL 


KINGDOM OF JUDAH. 

KINGDOM OF ISRAEL. 

B.c. 976-959 

Rehoboam. 

B.c. 976-955 

Jeroboam. 

959-956 

Abijah. 

955-954 

Nadab. 

956-915 

Asa. 

954-931 

Baasha. 

915-891 

Jehoshaphat. 

931-930 

Elah. 

891-884 

Jehoram. 

930 

Zimri. 

884-883 

Ahaziah. 

930-919 

Omri. Samaria built. 

883-877 

Athaliah. 

919-897 

Ahab. 

877-837 

Joash. 

897-895 

Ahaziah. 

837-808 

Amaziah. 

895-883 

J oram. 

808-756 

Uzziah. 

883-855 

Jehu. 

756-741 

Jotham. 

855-839 

Jehoahaz. 

741-726 

Ahaz. 

' 839-823 

Jehoash 

726-697 

Hezekiah. 

823-782 

Jeroboam. 

697-642 

Manasseh. 

782-771 

Interreign. 

642-640 

Amon. 

771 

Zachariah. 

640-609 

Josiah. 

770 

Shallum. 

609 

Jeoahaz. 

770-760 

Menahem. 

609-598 

Jehoiakim. 

760 

Interreign. 

598 

J ehoiachin. 

759-757 

Pekaiah. 

698-587 

Zedekiah. 

757-738 

Pekah. 

587 

Jerusalem taken by Nebu¬ 

738-729 

Interreign. 


chadnezzar. End of the 

729-720 

Hoshea. 


kingdom of Judah, which 

720 

Israel conquered by the 


remains subject to Assyria 


Assyrian Salmanassar. Sa¬ 


until b.c. 538. 


maria subject to the Assy¬ 




rians until b.c. 538. 


* These two dates have been adopted because they are the most generally received 
by English writers. It must, however, be observed that, according to the Septuagint, 
tne Creation is referred to B.c. 5508, and the Deluge to b.c. 3246. The date of the 
Creation is, in fact, carried back by some as far as b.c. 6984, while others bring it down 
to B.c. 3616. See Encyclop. Britannicn, article Chronology, p. 669. 










600 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


B.C. 538 

538-332 

520 

332 

323-301 

277 

170 

166 

162 

162-143 

143-136 

136-107 

106 

105-78 

78-69 

69 
69-63 

63-41 

41-3 

5 or 4 
a.d. 26-37 

33 

70 


Cyrus, after conquering Babylon, allows the Jews to return to 
their country. 

All Palestine subject to Persia. 

Building of the second Temple. 

Alexander the Great at Jerusalem, to whom Palestine is subject 
until his death in B.C. 323. 

Palestine subject to Syria, and from 301 to 203 to the kings of Egypt. 
Origin of the Septuagint. 

Jerusalem taken, and its temple polluted by Antiochus Epiphanes. 
Judas Maccabaeus frees Judaea from the Syrians. 

Death of Judas Maccabaeus. 

Jonathan. 

Simon. 

John Hyrcanus. 

Aristobulus, son of Hyrcanus, assumes the title of king. 

Alexander Jannaeus. 

Queen Alexandra. 

Hyrcanus II. 

Aristobulus II. Dispute between Aristobulus and Hyrcanus 
decided by Pompey in favour of the latter. 

Hyrcanus II. restored. 

Herod the Great. 

Birth of Jesus Christ. 

Pontius Pilate, governor of Judaea. 

Jesus Christ crucified. 

Siege, capture, and destruction of Jerusalem. 


CHINA. 


b.c. 2207 
500 

250 

200 


Han, the first historical dynasty. 

Confucius (Kong-fu-tse), Chinese philosopher and reformer. 
Destruction of Chinese literature in the reign of Shi-hoang-ti. 
Death of Shi-hoang-ti, and restoration of literature. 


INDIA. 


b.c. 1400 

525 

327 

250 

A,D. 1 


Beginning of the historical period. Origin of the most ancient 
parts of the Vedas. 

Origin of Buddhism. 

Alexander the Great in India. 

King Agoca promotes Buddhism, which is introduced also into 
Ceylon, Tibet, China, and other parts. 

King Vikramaditya, patron of literature. Kalidasa, the dramatic 
poet. 


IRANIAN NATIONS. 


a BACTRIA. 


b.c. 1230 
1000 
540 
329 
256 
181 
100 
a.d. 226 


The Assyrian Ninus invades Bactria. 

Zoroaster, the founder of the religion of light. 

Cyrus subdues Bactria. 

Alexander the Great conquers Bactria. 

Bactria, an independent kingdom under Antiochus Theus. 

King Eucratidas extends the Bactrian empire. 

Overthrow of the Bactrian kingdom by the Scythians. 

Bactria becomes a province of the Persian empire of the Sassanidae. 







CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


C01 


b.c. 1230 
713 
709-656 
656-634 
634-594 
605 
594-559 


B.C. 

559-531 

546 

538 

531 

530-522 

526 

522 

521-486 

516 
* 507 

500 
493 
492 
490 
487 
485-465 
484 
480 
479 

465 

465-425 

460-455 

450 

425 

425 

424-405 

412 

408 

405-359 

400 

396-394 

359-338 

350 

350-347 

338-336 

336-331 

334 

333 

331 


b MEDIA. 

Media becomes subject to Assyria. 

The Medes throw off the yoke of Assyria. 

Deioces, king of Media, built Ecbatana, his capital. 

Phraortes perishes in a war against Assyria. 

Cyaxares greatly extends his empire. 

Cyaxares destroys Nineveh. 

Astyages. The Median empire overthrown by the Persians. 

c PERSIA. 

Cyrus, founder of the Persian monarchy. 

Croesus, king of Lydia, conquered by Cyru6. 

Cyrus conquers Babylon. 

Cyrus is killed in a war against the Massagetae. 

Cambyses succeeds Cyrus. 

Cambyses conquers Egypt. 

Smerdis revolts, and maintains himself on the throne of Persia for 
seven months. 

Darius, son of Hystaspes, is chosen king of Persia. 

An insurrection of Babylon is quelled. Zopyrus. 

Unsuccessful expedition against the Scythians in Europe. 

Revolt of the Ionians. 

The Persians are again masters of all Asia Minor. 

Mardonius’ invasion of Europe fails. 

The Persians defeated at Marathon. 

Insurrection of Egypt. 

Xerxes. 

The Egyptian insurrection quelled. 

Xerxes invades Europe, but is defeated at Artemisium and Salamis. 
His general Mardonius defeated at Plataeae, and on the same dav 
the Persians defeated at Mycale. 

Artabanus reigns only seven months. 

Artaxerxes I. (Longimanus). 

Revolt of Egypt under Inarus. 

Revolt of Egypt under Amyrtaeus. 

Xerxes II. reigns only two months. 

Sogdianus reigns seven months. 

Darrus II. (Nothus). 

A treaty between Sparta and Persia concluded. 

Cyrus the younger in Asia Minor supports Sparta. 

Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon). 

Insurrection and defeat of the king’s brother Cyrus. 

Agesilaus carries on the war against Persia in Asia. 

Ochus. Bagoas, the all-powerful eunuch. 

Phoenicia revolts. 

Revolt of Egypt under Nectanebus. 

Arses. 

Darius III. (Codomannus). 

The Persians defeated by Alexander on the Granicus. 

Battle of Issus. 

Battle of Gaugamela, and end of the Persian empire. 




602 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


b.c. 1230 

770 

740 

720 

712 

675-626 

605 


b.c. 1903 
747 

625 

604-561 

538 

516 


b.c. 730 
1100 
814 

595-582 

540 

332 


ASSYRIA. 

Ninus, the founder of the Assyrian empire and of Nineveh, suc¬ 
ceeded by Semiramis and Ninyas. 

Ph.ul makes conquests in western Asia. 

Tiglath-Pileser continues the conquests. 

Salmanassar takes Samaria. 

Sennacherib penetrates into Egypt, but is unsuccessful. 
Assarhaddon. In his reign the Assyrian empire begins to 
decline. 

Sardanapalus. Under him Nineveh is taken and destroyed by 
Cyaxares, and Assyria becomes a province of the Median 
empire. 

BABYLONIA. 

The earliest date to which native traditions ascend. 

Nabonassar shakes off the yoke of Assyria, to which Babylonia 
had been subject for more than 500 years. 

Nabopolassar assists Cyaxares against Assyria. 
Nebuchadnezzar, son of Nabopolassar, a great conqueror, leads 
the Jews captive to Babylon. After him the empire decays. 
Under its last king Nabonedus, Babylon is conquered by Cyrus. 
Revolt of Babylon. Zopyrus. 

PHOENICIA. 

Phoenicia subdued by the Assyrian Salmanassar. 

Gades, a colony of Tyre, founded in Spain. 

Carthage, a colony of Tyre, founded in Africa. 

Tyre besieged by Nebuchadnezzar. 

Phoenicia submits to Persia. 

Tyre taken and destroyed by Alexander the Great. 


B.c. 1200 
716 
716-678 

678-629 

629-617 

617-560 

560-546 

546 


b.c. 3892 
1655-1326 


1326-1183 


LYDIA. 

Agron, first king of the Heracleid dynasty. 

Candaules, the last king of that dynasty, murdered. 

Gyges, first king of the Mermnad dynasty, conquers Mysia, 
Colophon, and Magnesia. 

Ardys. The Cimmerians and Treres overrun Asia Minor. 
Sadyattes. 

Alyattes expels the Cimmerians and Treres, and extends his 
kingdom to the river Halys. 

Croesus, a mild and beneficent ruler. 

Croesus conquered and taken prisoner by Cyrus. 

EGYPT. 

Menes, the mythical founder of the kingdom. 

Period of the eighteenth dynasty, the first that can be regarded 
as historical. Raineses the Great. Egypt at the height 
of its power. 

Period of the nineteenth dynasty. Egypt still prosperous, but 
afterwards declines. 







CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


603 


b.c. 712 
700-670 
670-617 

617-601 

608 

604 

601-595 

595-570 

570-526 

526 

487 

484 

460-455 

450 

350-347 

332 

323-285 

306 

285-247 


283 

247-222 

222-205 

205-181 


193 

181-146 

146-117 

117-81 

96 

81-80 

80-51 

51-30 

30 


Sennacherib invades Egypt. 

Period of the dodecarchy. 

Psammetichus overthrows the dodecarchv, and becomes sole 
king of Egypt. 

Necho. Circumnavigation of Africa. 

Necho conquers the Jews, and takes Jerusalem. 

Necho defeated by Nebuchadnezzar at Circesium. 

Psammis. 

Apries conquers Phoenicia and Cyprus, but is defeated by the 
Cyreneans. 

Amasis. Egypt is very prosperous. 

Psammenitus. Egypt is conquered by Cambyses. 

First insurrection against Persia. 

Xerxes quells the insurrection. 

Second revolt of Egypt under Inarus. 

Revolt under Amyrtaeus. 

The last revolt, under Nectanebus. 

Egypt is conquered by Alexander the Great. 

Ptolemy Soter, the son of Lagus. 

Ptolemy assumes the title of king. Under him Egypt a great 
military and maritime state. The Museum. 

Ptolemy Philadelphus bestows all his care on the internal 
administration. Egypt very powerful. Manetho. The 
Septuagint. 

Death of Ptolemy Soter. 

Ptolemy Eurgetes makes great conquests in Asia, but they are 
not lasting. 

Ptolemy Philopator. The Egyptian empire begins to decline 

Ptolemy Epiphanes succeeds at the age of five, and many of 
his possessions are snatched from him by Syria and Mace, 
donia. 

Ptolemy marries a Syrian princess, whereby the disputes are 
settled. 

Ptolemy Philometor ascends the throne as an infant. He is 
guided by his mother Cleopatra until her death, b.c. 173. 
Egypt is almost wholly dependent on Rome. 

Ptolemy Eurgetes or Physcon, is said to have been a pupil of 
Aristarchus; was a most cruel tyrant. 

Ptolemy Soter or Lathyrus. Great confusion in Egypt. (Ptolemy 
Alexander, Cleopatra). 

Cyrene becomes a Roman province. 

Ptolemy Alexander. 

Ptolemy Dionysus or Auletes, leaves behind four children, one of 
whom is the celebrated Cleopatra. 

Cleopatra at first rules with her brother Ptolemy, and, after 
several vicissitudes, alone. 

Egypt becomes a Roman province. 


GREECE. 


1400-1200 

1194-1184 

1130 

1104 

1068 

900-800 


The heroic age of Greece. 

The war against Troy. 

Establishment of the yEolian colonies in Asia. 
Conquest of Peloponnesus by the Dorians. 
Medon, first archon for life at Athens. 

The age of Homer and Hesiod. 








884 

776 

752 

746 

■724 

735 

734 

723 

708 

690 

■668 

683 

658 

637 

629 

624 

-612 

612 

604 

600 

597 

■585 

594 

582 

-562 

570 

560 

559 

550 

542 

536 

527 

522 

514 

510 

510 

508 

504 

501 

500 

499 

494 

493 

492 

490 

483 

480 

480 

479 

478 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver. 

Commencement of the era of the Olympiads. 

Decennial archons at Athens. 

Rhegium in Italy founded. 

The first Messenian war. 

Naxos in Sicily founded by Theocles. 

Syracuse, a Corinthian colony, founded by Arcliias. 

Sybaris in Italy founded. 

Tarentum founded by Laconians under Phalanthus. 

Gela in Sicily founded by Cretans and Rhodians. 

The second Messenian war. 

First annual archons at Athens. 

Byzantium founded by Megarians. 

Cyrene receives additional colonists from Greece, and changes its 
constitution. 

Selinus in Sicily founded. 

Draco’s legislation at Athens. 

War between Lydia and Miletus. 

Cylon’s conspiracy at Athens. 

Solon recovers Salamis for Athens. 

Massilia founded by Phocaeans. 

Megacles and his partizans banisned from Athens. 

The Crissaean or first Sacred War. 

Solon, as archon, reforms the constitution of Athens. 

Agi'igentum founded. 

Solon travels in various countries. 

Pythagoras the philosopher. 

Pisistratus becomes tyrant of Athens. 

Solon dies, and Pisistratus is expelled. 

Phercydes of Syros, first Greek prose writer. 

Pisistratus finally established as tyrant. 

Xenophanes emigrates from Colophon to Elea, and founds the 
Eleatic school of philosophy. 

Pisistratus dies. 

Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, murdered at Sardes. 

Conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogeiton against the Pisis- 
tratids. 

Expulsion of the Pisistratids. Constitutional reforms bv 
Cleisthenes. 

Sybaris destroyed by the Crotoniats. 

Cleisthenes returns to Athens. War between Athens and Sparta 
and her allies. 

The Crotoniats rise against the aristocracy and the Pythagoraeans. 
Aristagoras of Miletus fails in his undertaking against Naxos. 
Revolt of the lonians in Asia Minor. 

Sardes burnt. 

Miletus taken by the Persians. 

Complete subjugation of the Asiatic Greeks. 

The Persian Mardonius invades Europe. 

Second invasion of Europe by the Persians, and battle ot 

Marathon. 

Aristides exiled by ostracism. 

Xerxes invades Europe. Battles of Thermopylae, Artemisinin, 
and Salamis. 

The Greeks in Sicily gain a great victory over the Carthaginians. 
Battles of Plataeae and Mycale. 

Athens rebuilt, and its harbours fortified. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


605 


i».c. 477 
477-404 

476 

471 

468 

466 

465 

464 

464-455 

463 

461 

460-455 


457 

456 

455 

454 

453 

450 

449 

448 

447 

445 

445-432 

443 

440 

435 

434 

433 

432 

431 

430 

429 

428 

427 

426 

425 


424 


423 

422 

421 

420 


The Greek fleet conquers Cyprus and Byzantium. 

Period of the supremacy of Athens. 

Cimon conquers Eion and Scyros. 

Conviction and death of Pausanias, and flight of Themistocles to 
Epirus, and afterwards to Persia. 

• Death of Aristides. 

Naxos conquered by the Athenians. 

Cimon defeats the Persians on the Eurymedon. 

Revolt of Thasos. Pericles enters on public life. 

The third Messenian war, in consequence of an earthquake. 

Cimon subdues Thasos. 

Cimon is exiled. 

Revolt of Inarus in Egypt, who is supported by the Athenians, 
but fails. 

War between Athens and the Corinthians with their allies. The 
Athenians defeated at Tanagra. 

Myronides defeats the Thebans at (Enophyta. 

The Athenians gain possession of Naupactus. 

Murder of Ephialtes, the friend of Pericles. 

Cimon recalled from exile. 

A truce of five years concluded between Athens and Sparta. 

Death of Cimon at Citium, in Cyprus. 

War between the Delphians and Phocians, the former being 
supported by Sparta, the latter by Athens. 

Battle of Coroneia, in which Tolmides the Athenian is defeated. 

Revolt of Euboea and Megara. A truce for thirty years con¬ 
cluded between Athens and Sparta. 

Administration of Pericles. 

The colony of Thurii founded in Italy by Athenians and other 
Greeks. 

Revolt of Samos. Sophocles one of the generals. Samos is 
reduced and Byzantium conquered. 

War between Corinth and Corcyra about Epidamnus. 

The Corinthians defeated in a naval action. 

Alliance between Athens and Corcyra. 

Battle of Sybota. Beginning of the Peloponnesian war. 

The Thebans attack Plataeae. The Spartans invade Attica, 
and the Athenians retaliate. . 

Second invasion of Attica, which is visited by the plague. Sur¬ 
render of the revolted Potidaea. 

Death of Pericles. Siege of Plataeae. 

Third invasion of Attica. Revolt of Lesbos. 

Fourth invasion of Attica. Lesbos reduced by Paches. Cleon 
the demagogue. 

The Athenians are successful in Boeotia, Locris, JEtolia, Sicily, 
and Italy. 

Fifth invasion of Attica. Pylos taken and fortified by the 
Athenians. Cleon takes Sphacteria and the Spartans in the 
island. 

Nicias takes Cythera. General peace in Sicily. Brasidas 
at Megara and in Thrace. The Athenians defeated at 
Delion. 

Truce for one year. 

Death of Brasidas, and Cleon at Amphipolis. 

Peace of Nicias concluded for fifty years. Offensive and defen¬ 
sive alliance between Athens and Sparta. Argive confederacy. 

Alliance between Argos and Athens. Alcibiades. 



418 

417 

416 

415 

414 

413 

412 

411 

410 

409 

408 

407 

406 

405 

404 

403 

400 

399 

399 

398 

398 

397 

396 

395 

.387 

394 

393 

392 

391 

390 

389 

388 

387 

385 

379 

382 

379 

362 

377 

376 

375 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


War between Sparta and Argos. Battle of Mantineia, in which 
the Spartans are victorious. Alliance between Sparta and 
Argos, 

The alliance broken, and war renewed. 

Alcibiades at Argos. Conquest of Melos. Egesta in Sicily 

solicits the aid of the Athenians. 

The great Sicilian expedition. Mutilation of the Hermae. 
Alcibiades recalled. 

Siege of Syracuse, which is relieved by Gylippus. 

The Spartans establish themselves at Decelea in Attica. Fearful 
defeat of the Athenians in Sicily. 

Alcibiades, with the Spartan fleet, on the coast of Asia. 
Oligarchy established at Athens, but overthrown in the same 
year. Battles of Cynossema and Abydos. 

Alcibiades defeats the Lacedaemonians in Asia. 

The Athenians conquer Byzantium. 

Alcibiades returns to Athens. Lysander commands the Spartan 
fleet. Cyrus the younger supports Sparta. 

The Athenians defeated at Notion. Alcibiades withdraws to 
Chersonesus, and is succeeded by Conon. 

Battle of Arginusae. Misfortune of the Athenian generals. 
Battle of iEgospotomi, in which the Athenians are defeated by 
Lysander. Siege and surrender of Athens. 

Lysander enters Athens. The Thirty Tyrants. 

Thr.asybulus delivers Athens from the tyranny of the Thirty. 
Restoration of the constitution. 

Cyrus the younger, assisted by Greeks, revolts against Artax- 
erxes. Battle of Cunaxa. 

Dercyllidas, the Spartan, carries on war in Asia against Persia. 
Socrates condemned to death. 

War between Sparta and Elis. 

Agesilaus becomes king of Sparta. 

Conspiracy of Cinadon at Sparta. 

Agesilaus takes the command in Asia against the Persians. 
Agesilaus defeats the Persians. A coalition formed in Greece 
against Sparta. Lysander killed at Haliartos. 

The Corinthian or Boeotian war. 

Agesilaus recalled from Asia. Defeats the Boeotian confederates 
at Coroneia. 

Massacre at Corinth. Rebuilding of the walls of Athens by 
Conon. 

Agesilaus repulsed by Iphicrates. 

Antalcidas negotiates with Persia for a peace. 

Death of Thrasybulus. 

Iphicrates defeats the Spartans at Abydos. 

The Spartans take iEgina and harass Attica. 

The peace of Antalcidas concluded. 

Mantineia destroyed by the Spartans. 

The Olynthian war. 

Thebes seized by the Spartan Phoebidas. Pelopidas escapes 

to Athens. 

Olynthus is compelled to surrender to the Spartans. Pelopidas 
liberates Thebes. 

The Theban war. The Spartans invade Boeotia. 

The invasion of Boeotia repeated. 

The Spartans compelled to retreat from Boeotia. 

The Spartans defeated at Orckomenos. 




CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


607 


b.c. 374 
373 
371 
370 
369 

368 

367 

366 

365 

364 

362 

361 

360 

359 

357-355 

355-346 

353 

352 

351 

347 

346 

344-341 

340 

339 

338 

337 

336 

335 

334 

333 

331 

324 

323 

322 

318 

318-307 

317 

315 

314 

312 

311 

307 

304 

301 


Peace between Athens and Sparta, but not of long duration. 

The Spartans are obliged to raise the siege of Corcyra. 

Battle of Leuctra, in which the Spartans are totally defeated. 
Jason of Pherae assassinated. 

First invasion of Peloponnesus by Epaminondas. Restoration 
of Messenia. 

Second invasion of Peloponnesus. Pelopidas taken prisoner by 
Alexander of Pherae. 

The Arcadians defeated by the Spartans. 

Third invasion of Peloponnesus. 

War between Arcadia and Elis. 

Pelopidas is killed in Thessaly, but Alexander of Pherae forms 
an alliance with Thebes. 

Fourth invasion of Peloponnesus. Battle of Mantineia. Death 
of Epaminondas. 

A general peace concluded. Death of Agesilaus. 

Amphipolis falls into the hands of the Olynthians. 

Accession of Philip of Macedonia. 

Social war between Athens and her allies, at the close of which 
Athens loses most of her allies. 

Sacred war against the Phocians. 

Defeat of the Phocians at Neon. War of Sparta against Megalo¬ 
polis. Olynthos allies itself with Athens. 

The Phocians compel Philip to return to Macedonia. First 
Philippic of Demosthenes. 

The Phocians carry on the war in Boeotia. 

Olynthos and other Thracian towns are taken by Philip. 

The Boeotians defeated by the Phocians at Coroneia. But the 
Phocians submit, and their towns are destroyed. 

Philip continues his conquests. 

Athens resolves upon war against Philip. 

Phocion obliges him to raise the siege of Perinthos and Byzantium. 
War against Amphissa. Battle of Chaeroneia. 

Congress of Greek states at Corinth, and Philip appointed com¬ 
mander-in-chief against Persia. 

Murder of Philip, and accession of Alexander. 

Rise of the Greeks against Macedonia. Destruction of Thebes. 
Alexander sets out for Asia. 

Agis, king of Sparta, forms a confederacy against Macedonia. 

Memnon of Rhodes dies. 

Agis defeated by Antipater near Megalopolis. 

Alexander orders the exiles to be recalled in the various parts of 
Greece. Harpalus in Greece. Demosthenes exiled. 
Alexander dies at Babylon. Fresh revolt of Athens. 

Battle of Crannon. Surrender of Athens. Death of Demosthenes. 
Polysperchon proclaims the independence of Greece. 
Administration of Athens by Demetrius Phalereus. 

Athens submits to Cassander. Death of Phocion. 

Thebes rebuilt by command of Cassander. 

Greece declared free by Antigonus and Ptolemy. 

Ptolemy makes himself master of several parts of Greece. 

General peace ; the independence of Greece guaranteed. 
Demetrius Poliorcetes becomes master of Athens. 

Demetrius returns to Gi'eece against Cassander, -who had made 
attempts upon Athens. 

Demetrius, after the battle of Ipsus, is refused admission into 
Athens. 





296 

287 

280 

279 

275 

-262 

251 

■241 

243 

241 

220 

229 

226 

224 

223 

222 

221 

220 

•217 

219 

218 

217 

213 

211 

208 

207 

205 

200 

197 

196 

195 

194 

192 

191 

190 

189 

188 

183 

181 

168 

167 

155 

151 

147 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


Athens, besieged by Demetrius, surrenders to him. 

Athens recovers her freedom during the brief reign of Pyrrhus. 
Demochares returns from exile, and undertakes the admini¬ 
stration of Athens. 

Beginnings of the Achaean league. Celts in Greece. 

The Celts routed at Delphi. 

Extension of the Achaean league. 

Athens besieged, and obliged to surrender to Antigonus Gonatas. 
Flourishing period of the Achaean league. Aratus Strategus. 
Agis IV., king of Sparta, attempts reforms. 

The Macedonian garrison driven from Acrocorinthus. 

Agis IV. murdered. 

Cleomenes III. and his reforms at Sparta. 

Athens freed from the Macedonian garrison. 

Aratus strategus for the eleventh time. Cleomenes at war with 
the Achaean league. 

The Achaeans seek the aid of Macedonia against Sparta. 
Antigonus Doson in Peloponnesus. 

Cleomenes takes Megalopolis, and invades Argolis. 

Battle of Sellasia. The Spartans utterly defeated, and Sparta 
taken. Cleomenes flees to Egypt. 

Cleomenes kills himself. Lycurgus sole king of Sparta. 

Social war between the Achaean and iEtolian leagues. 

Philip V. invades yEtolia, and the yEtolians invade Achaia. 
Philip defeats Lycurgus. 

Philip’s attention being drawn to Italy, he concludes peace with 
the yEtolians. 

Aratus poisoned by order of Philip. 

The yEtolians conclude a treaty with Rome. Death of Lycurgus. 

Machanidas, tyrant of Sparta. 

The yEtolians defeated by Philip. Philopoemen. 

Philopoemen defeats Machanidas at Mantineia. 

The flEtolians are obliged to make peace with Philip. 

Attica invaded by Philip, which is the cause of the second Mace¬ 
donian war with Rome. 

Battle of Cynoscephalae. 

Flamininus proclaims the independence of Greece. 

ISTabis, tyrant of Sparta, is compelled to submit to a peace dictated 
by Flamininus. 

War between Nabis and the Achaeans. 

Nabis defeated by Philopoemen, and killed by the iEtolians. 
The Achaean league embraces all Peloponnesus. The yEto¬ 
lians invite Antiochus, king of Syria. 

The YEtolians and Antiochus defeated at Thermopylae. 

A truce of six months between the yEtolians and Romans. 

War recommenced, and the iEtolian confederacy broken up. 
War between Sparta and the Achaeans. Sparta conquered, and 
its ancient constitution abolished by Philopoemen. 

Messenia revolts from the Achaean league. Philopoemen put to 
death. 

Sparta recovered by the Achaean league. 

Battle of Pydna. End of the kingdom of Macedonia. 

One thousand Achaean hostages, including Polybius, sent to Italy. 
Athenian ambassadors at Rome. 

Return of the surviving Achaean hostages from Italy. 

The Achaeans declare war against Rome. Their strategus 

Critolaus perishes after two defeats. 




CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


609 


B.C. 146 

86 


Battle of Leucopetra. Corinth destroyed by Mummius. 

The Achaean confederacy broken up. Greece subject to 
Rome. 

Athens besieged, taken, and plundered by Sulla. 


b.c. 750 
413-399 
399-394 

394-393 

393-369 

369-367 

367-364 

364-359 

359-336 

358 

356 

352 

349 

347 

346 

344-341 

340 

339 

338 


336 

336-323 

335 

334 

333 

332 

331 

330 

329-328 

327 

326 

325 

324 

323 

323-322 

321 

318 


MACEDONIA. 

Caranus, the alleged founder of the Macedonian dynasty. 

Archelaus, the first great king. 

Orestes, a minor, under the guardianship of Aeropus, who usurps 
the throne, and is succeeded by his son. 

Pausanius, assassinated by Amyntas. 

Amyntas II. leaves behind him three sons, Alexander, Perdiccas, 
and Philip. 

Alexander, is murdered by a usurper, Ptolemy Alorites. 

Ptolemy Alorites, the usurper, is assassinated by Perdiccas. 

Perdiccas, is killed in a war against the Illyrians. 

Philip III., son of Amyntas II, and father of Alexander the Great. 

Philip is successful against the Illyrians, and interferes with the 
Greek towns in Thrace. 

Birth of Alexander. Philip interferes in the affairs of Thessaly. 

Philip takes part in the Sacred War against the Phocians; but 
being repulsed at Thermopylae, returns to Macedonia. 

Philip attacks Olynthos. 

Olynthos and other Thracian towns are conquered. 

Philip concludes peace with Athens. 

Philip makes conquests in Illyricum and Thrace. 

Philip besieges Perinthos and Byzantium. 

Is obliged by Phocion to raise the siege. 

War against Amphissa, in which Philip is made commander-in¬ 
chief by the Amphictions. Battle of Chaeroneia. Peace 
with Athens and Thebes. 

Philip assassinated at JEgeae. 

Alexander the Great. 

Expeditions against the Triballi, Getae, and Illyrians. Revolt 
of Greek states. Destruction of Thebes. 

Alexander sets out for Asia. Battle on the Granicus. 

Battle of Issus. 

Alexander takes Tyre. Egypt submits to him, and he plans the 
building of Alexandria. 

B.Jttle of Gaugamela. 

Alexander takes Ecbatana. Darius murdered. 

Alexander marches across the Paropamisus, and the rivers Oxus 
and Jaxartes. He marries Roxana. 

Alexander in India. Defeat of Porus. 

Alexander returns through the Gedrosian desert. Nearchus, 
with the fleet, sails from the Indus to the Persian gulf. 

Alexander in Persia assumes the customs of eastern despots. 

Mutiny among Alexander’s troops. Philotas put to death. Alex¬ 
ander at Babylon plans new conquests. 

Alexander dies at Babylon. His empire divided. 

Lamian war, in which the Greeks are compelled to submit tc 
Antipater. 

Perdiccas, regent of the empire, murdered, and the empire distri¬ 
buted anew. 

Death of Antipater: is succeeded by Polysperchon. 

2 R 




610 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


B.O. 316 

316 

315-311 

315-296 

312 

311 

309 

308 

306 


301 

293- 295 

294- 287 
287 

286-281 

283 

281 

281-280 

280 

280-274 

274-272 

272-239 

269-262 

239-229 

229-220 

223 

221 

220 

220-179 

220-217 

216 

215-205 

205 

200-197 

197 

196 

179-168 

171-168 

168 

149 

148 


Cassander, Antipater’s son, causes Olympias to be put to death, 
she having murdered Arrhidaeus and Eurydice in b.c. 317. 

Craterus, taken prisoner by Antigonus, dies in a dungeon. 

War of Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and Cassander, against 
Antigonus. 

Cassander, at first regent, then king of Macedonia. 

Seleucus establishes himself in the East. Era of the Seleucidae. 

Murder of Roxana and her son Alexander by Cassander. General 
peace among the successors of Alexander. 

Murder of Barsine and her son Heracles. 

Cassander comes to terms with Ptolemy. 

Ptolemy defeated in Cyprus. Antigonus and his son Demetrius 
assume the title of king, and their example is followed by 
the others. 

Battle of Ipsus. Macedonia, Thrace, Syria, and Egypt recognised 
as independent kingdoms. 

Philip IV. Civil war in Macedonia. 

Demetrius Poliorcetes usurps the throne. 

Demetrius dethroned by Pyrrhus, who reigns over Macedonia 
for seven months. 

Lysimachus expels Pyrrhus, and becomes king of Macedonia. 

Demetrius Poliorcetes dies as a prisoner of Seleucus. 

Lysimachus slain in battle against Seleucus. 

Ptolemy Ceraunus. 

Invasion of Macedonia by the Celts. 

Antigonus Gonatas. 

Pyrrhus again king of Macedonia. 

Antigonus Gonatas again king of Macedonia. 

War against Athens, which in the end surrenders, and receives a 
Macedonian garrison. 

Demetrius II. 

Antigonus Doson reigns as guardian of Philip, the son of De¬ 
metrius. 

Antigonus Doson, called to the assistance of the Achaeans against 
Sparta, enters Peloponnesus. 

Battle of Sellasia. Antigonus takes Sparta. 

Death of Antigonus Doson. 

Philip V. 

Social war in Greece, in which Philip supports the Achaeans 
against the iEtolians. 

Philip concludes a treaty with Hannibal against Rome. 

First War with Rome carelessly conducted. 

Peace between Philip and the iEtolians. 

Second War with Rome. 

Philip defeated by Flamininus in the battle of Cynoscephalae. 

Peace between Rome and Macedonia ratified, and Greece declared 
free. 

Perseus, last king of Macedonia. 

Third War with Rome. 

Battle of Pydna, in which Perseus is defeated by L. vEmilius 
Paullus. 

Andriscus, a pretender under the name of Philip, raises himself 
to the throne of Macedonia. 

Andriscus defeated by Caecilius Metellus. Macedonia a Roman 
province. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


fill 


B.C. 

312-280 

280 

280-261 

261-246 

250 

246-226 


226-223 

223-187 

217 

214 

212-205 

196 

195 

192 

191 

190 


187-175 

175-164 

164-162 

162-150 

150-146 

146-137 

137-128 

125 

125-95 

95-83 

83-69 

69-65 

65 


SYRIA. 

Seleucus Nicator, founder of the Syrian empire, assassinated at 
Lysimachia. 

State of Galatia formed. 

Antiochus Soter, is killed in a battle against the Celts in Asia 
Minor. 

Antiochus Theos. War against Egypt. Is murdered by bis 
wife. 

Foundation of the Parthian empire by Arsaces. Bactria also 
makes itself independent. 

Seleucus Callinicus. A part of his kingdom conquered by 
Ptolemy Euergetes of Egypt. War against his brother 
Antiochus Hierax, who is defeated. Seleucus dies in con¬ 
sequence of a fall. 

Seleucus Ceraunus, an imbecile ruler, murdered by his own 
officers. 

Antiochus III., the Great. 

Antiochus is defeated at Gaza, and Phoenicia and Palestine are 
ceded to Egypt. 

The usurper Achaeus defeated. 

Wars with Parthia and Bactria, the independence of which is 
finally recognised. 

Antiochus crosses over into Europe, and conquers the Thracian 
Chersonesus. 

Hannibal goes to Antiochus. 

Antiochus invades Greece by the desire of the lEtolians. 

Antiochus, defeated in the battle of Thermopylae, quits Europe. 

Antiochus defeated by the Scipios in the battle of Magnesia. 
All Asia west of Mount Taurus is lost, and the power of 
Syria broken. 

Seleucus Philopator. The decay of the empire continues. 

Antiochus Epiphanes, is forced by the Romans to abandon Egypt. 

Antiochus Eupator. 

Demetrius Soter. 

Alexander Bala. 

Demetrius Nicator (Antiochus Trypho). 

Antiochus Sidetes (Demetrius Nicator, again). 

Seleucus Y. 

Antiochus Grypus (Antiochus Cyzicenus). 

Seleucus VI. (Antiochus Eusebes, Philip, Demetrius Eucaerus, 
Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus Dionysus). 

Tigranes, king of Armenia. 

Antiochus Asiaticus. 

Syria becomes a Roman province. 


CARTHAGE AND SICILY. 


b.c. 814 
734 

550 

509 

480 


Foundation of Carthage. 

Syracuse founded by the Corinthian Archias. 

Malchus conquers part of Sicily, but is unsuccessful against 
Sardinia. _. . 

Treaty of commerce between Carthage and Some. Sardinia 
a Carthaginian province. 

The Carthaginians defeated at Himera by the Greeks. 




612 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


B.C. 410 
348 

306 

*27Q 

405-368 

363-345 

345-337 

317-289 

310 

308 

481 

278 

275 

270 

264 

£64-241 

264 

241 

241-238 

238 

229 

221 

219 

218-202 

216 

215 

212 

183 

149-146 

146 

334-132 

*02-99 


Renewed attempts of the Carthaginians upon Sicily. 

Renewal of the commercial treaty between Rome and Car¬ 
thage. 

Second renewal of the ancient commercial treaty with Rome. 

Defensive alliance between Rome and Carthage. 

Dionysius the elder, tyrant of Syracuse. The war with Car¬ 
thage is renewed, and Carthage is in the end successful. 

Dionysius the younger is hard pressed by the Carthaginians 
towards the end of his rule. 

Timoleon checks the Carthaginians. After him Syracuse an 
oligarchy, until the time of Agathocles. 

Agathocles, tyrant of Syracuse. 

The Carthaginians besiege Syracuse, while Agathocles attacks 
Carthage. 

Agathocles invites Ophelias of Cyrene to join him against Car¬ 
thage. 

The Mamertines take possession of Messene. 

Pyrrhus arrives in Sicily to assist the Greeks against the 
Carthaginians and Mamertines. 

Hiero elected general by the Syracusans. 

Hiero obtains the title of king. 

The Mamertines ally themselves with the Romans. 

First war of Carthage against Rome. 

Hiero concludes peace with Rome. 

Sicily, evacuated by the Carthaginians, becomes the first 
Roman province. 

War of Carthage against her revolted mercenaries. 

Carthage loses Sardinia and Corsica. 

Hamilcar dies in Spain. 

Hasdrubal is assassinated in Spain, and succeeded by the great 
Hannibal. 

Hannibal besieges and destroys Saguntum. 

Second war of Carthage against Rome. 

Death of Hiero, who is succeeded by Hieronymus. 

Murder of Hieronymus, after which Hippocrates and Epicydes 
join the Carthaginians. 

Capture of Syracuse by M. Marcellus. The eastern portion 
of Sicily also becomes part of the Roman province. 

Death of Hannibal. 

Third and last war between Carthage and Rome. 

Carthage taken and destroyed. Its territory a Roman province. 

First servile war in Sicily. 

Second servile war in Sicily. 


ROME. 


b.c. 753 
753-716 
715-672 
672-640 

640-616 

616-578 

578-534 


Foundation of Rome. 

Romulus. Political institutions. 

Numa Pompilius. Religious institutions. 

Tullus Hostilius. War against Alba. The Horatii and Curiatii. 

Alba Longa destroyed. Beginnings of the plebs. 

Ancus Marcius. Formation of the plebeian order by the con¬ 
quest of the Latins. Ostia built. 

Tarquinius Priscus, attempts reforms, but is thwarted. 

Servius Tullius. Organisation of the plebs, and reforms of the 
constitution. 





CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


613 


B.C. 

634-510 

509 

505 

501 

498 

496 

495 

494 

493 

491 

486 

485 

477 

473 

471 

462 

458 

457 

454 

451 

450 

449 

445 

443 

440 

439 

438 

426 

396 

391 

390 

384 

383 

376 

367 

366 

358 
356 
351 
350 
343-341 
340-338 
339 
338 ! 
337 i 
328 : 
326-304 
322 


Tarquinius Superbus. 

Establishment of the republic. First consuls. Conspiracy at 
Rome. War with Porsenna. 

War against the Sabines. 

War with the Latins. 

T. Larcius, first dictator. 

Battle of Lake Regillus, in which the Latins are defeated. 
Death of Tarquinius Superbus. Insurrection of the plebs. 
Secession of the plebs to the Mons Sacer. 

Appointment of the tribunes of the plebs. The iEdiles. League 
of Sp. Cassius with the Latins. 

Coriolanus stirs up the Volscians against Rome. 

League of Sp. Cassius with the Hernicans. First attempt at 
an agrarian law. 

Sp. Cassius put to death, and his agrarian law is disregarded. 
Defeat of the Fabii on the Cremera. 

The tribune Genucius murdered. 

The tribune Publilius Yolero carries several laws to protect the 
plebs. 

The tribune C. Terentillus Arsa demands a revision of the laws. 
The dictator L. Quinctius Cincinnatus defeats the ACquians. 

The number of tribunes of the plebs is increased to ten. 

The bill of Terentillus Arsa is at length carried. 

The first decemvirate. 

The second decemvirate. Laws of the Twelve Tables. 
Secession of the plebs to the Mons Sacer. Deposition of the 
decemvirs. Laws of Valerius and Horatius. 

The tribune Canuleius carries a law establishing the conmibium 
between patricians and plebeians. 

Institution of the censorship. 

Famine at Rome. Sp. Maelius assists the poor. 

Sp. Maelius murdered bv Servilius Ahala. 

The first military tribunes instead of consuls. 

Fidenae destroyed. 

Capture of Veil by Camillas after a siege of ten years. 

Camillus goes into exile. The Gauls besiege Clusium. 

Battle of the Allia. Rome taken and destroyed by the 
Gauls. 

M. Manlius Capitolinus condemned to death. 

The Pomptine district assigned to the plebeians. 

C. Licinius Stolo and L. Sextius bring forward their rogations. 
The Licinian rogations are passed after a struggle of nearly 
ten years. 

L. Sextius, the first plebeian consul. First appointment of a 

praetor. 

T. Manlius Torquatus defeats a gigantic Gaul on the Allia. 

The first plebeian dictator, C. Marcius Rutilus. 

The first plebeian censor. 

M. Valerius Corvus slays a Gallic chief by the aid of a raven. 

First war against the Samnites. 

War against the Latins. Self-sacrifice of P. Decius. 

The laws of Q,. Publilius Philo. 

Final subjugation of Latium. 

The first plebeian praetor. 

Foundation of the colony of Fregellae. 

Second war against the Samnites. 

Luceria in Apulia conquered by the Romans. 




614 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


b.o. 321 

315 

314 

312 

311 

309 

308 

306 

305 

300 

298-290 

295 

292 

290 

285-282 

282 

281 

280 

279 

278 

276 

275 

273 

272 

271 

268 

264 

264-241 

262 

260 

258 

256 

255 


254 

252 

250 

249 

247 

242 

241 


238 


Defeat of the Romans at Candium. Afterwards they gain 
several victories. 

War declared against Rome by the Etruscans. 

Great success of the Romans against Samnium. 

The Appian road made. 

War with the Etruscans breaks out. 

The dictator L. Papirius Cursor defeats the Samnites. 

The Etruscan towns conclude peace. 

The Samnites defeated in all directions. Subjugation of the 
Hernicans. 

The Samnites, defeated at Bovianum, sue for peace. The vEquians 
rise, but are completely crushed. 

The colleges of augurs and pontiffs thrown open to the plebeians 
by the Ogulnian law. 

Third war against the Samnites. The Etruscans and Um¬ 
brians also rise again. 

The Romans recover all Lucania. Victory of the Romans at 
Sentinum in Umbria. Decius Mus. 

The Samnites totally defeated; their commander Pontius taken. 

Samnium, and soon after Etruria and Umbria, recognise the 
supremacy of Rome. 

War against the Gauls. Subjugation of the Senones and 
Boil. 

The Romans relieve Thurii, which is besieged by the Lucanians. 

Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, lands in Italy. 

The Romans defeated by Pyrrhus near Heracleia. 

The Romans again defeated by Pyrrhus at Asculum. 

Truce between the Romans and Pyrrhus, who goes to Sicily. 

Pyrrhus returns to Italy. 

Pyrrhus, defeated at Beneventum, abandons Italy. 

Embassy of Ptolemy Philadelphus to Rome. 

All southern Italy submits to Rome. 

Rhegium also is recovered by the Romans. 

Fourth and last war against the Samnites, lasts only one 
year. 

The Romans ally themselves with the Mamertines of Messene. 
Peace with Hiero. 

The first Punic war. 

Agrigentum besieged and taken by the Romans. 

C. Duilius defeats the Carthaginians off Mylae. 

Atilius Calatinus carries on the war in Sicily. 

The Carthaginians defeated off Ecnomus by M. Atilius Regulus, 
who sails with his fleet to Africa. 

Success of Regulus in Africa, but he is afterwards defeated by 
Xanthippus and taken prisoner. Wreck of the Roman fleet 
on the coast of Sicily. 

A new fleet is equipped, and Panormus taken. 

The Roman fleet sails to Africa, but is wrecked on its return. 

The Carthaginians defeated near Panormus. Regulus sent as 
ambassador to Rome. Siege of Lilybaeum. 

Defeat of Appius Claudius by land and sea. 

Hamilcar undertakes the command of the Carthaginians. 

The Romans build a new fleet. 

C. Lutatius Catulus defeats the Carthaginians off the TEgates 
. insulae. Peace with Carthage. Sicily the first Roman 
province. 

Sardinia and Corsica are taken from Carthage. 





CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


615 


B.c. 229 

228 

226 

225 

224 

223 

222 

221 

219 

218-202 

218 

217 

216 

215 

215-205 

214-212 

212 

211 

210 

209 

207 

205 

204 

203 

202 

201 

200-197 

200-181 

198 

197 

196 

192 

191 

190 

188 

183 

181-179 

171-168 

168 

155 

151 

149 

149-146 

148 

148-140 

147-143 


War against the Illyrian pirates. Agrarian law of C. Flaminius. 

Death of Hamilcar in Spain: he is succeeded by Hasdrubal. 
Peace with the Illyrians. 

The Gauls invade Etruria. 

The Gauls defeated in the battle of Telamon. 

Reduction of the Boii. 

C. Flaminius conquers the Insubrians. 

M. Claudius Marcellus, in the battle of Clastidium, brings the 
Gallic war to a close. Cremona and Placentia founded. 
Assassination of Hasdrubal, who is succeeded by Hannibal. 
Second war against the Illyrians, who are conquered by L. 

ASmilius Paulus. Capture of Saguntum. 

The second Punic or the Hannibalian war. 

The Romans defeated on the Ticinus and the Trebia. Cn. 

Cornelius Scipio goes to Spain. 

Defeat of the Romans on Lake Trasimenus. 

The Romans defeated at Cannae. 

Losses of Hannibal at Nola and Beneventum. Syracuse revolt* 
from Rome. Treaty of Hannibal with Philip of Macedonia. 
First war against Macedonia. 

Siege and capture of Syracuse by M. Claudius Marcellus. 

The two Scipios slain in battle in Spain. 

The Romans conquer Capua. P. Cornelius Scipio goes to 
Spain. 

Scipio takes Carthago Nova in Spain. 

Tarentum recovered by the Romans. Hasdrubal defeated at 
Baecula. 

Hasdrubal goes to Italy, but is defeated and slain on the Me- 
taurus. 

P. Cornelius Scipio, consul, goes to Sicily. 

Scipio crosses over into Africa. 

Syphax taken prisoner. 

Plannibal, recalled to Africa, is defeated in the battle of Zaxna. 
Peace with Carthage ratified at Rome. 

Second war against Macedonia. 

War against the Ligurians, Insubrians, and Boians. 

T. Quinctius Flamininus undertakes the war against Macedonia. 
Philip defeated in the battle of Cynoscephalae. Peace between 
Macedonia and Rome. 

Flamininus proclaims the independence of Greece. 

Antiochus, invited by the iEtolians, crosses over into Europe. 
Antiochus and the JEtolians defeated at Thermopylae. 

L. Cornelius Scipio crosses over into Asia, and defeats Antiochus 
in the battle of Magnesia. Peace concluded. 

Peace with Antiochus ratified at Rome. 

Death of Hannibal. 

War in Spain brought to a close by Tib. Sempronius Gracchus. 
Third and last Macedonian war. 

Battle of Pydna, in which Perseus is defeated. One thousand 
Achaeans sent to Italy. 

Greek philosophers expelled from Rome. 

The surviving Achaeans return to Greece. 

Andriscus, a pretender to the throne of Macedonia. 

The third and last Punic war. 

Andriscus is defeated and slain by Q. Caecilius Metellus. 

War in Spain. Yiriathus. 

War against the Achaeans. 




616 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


b.c. 146 

143-133 

141 

140 

139 

137 


134-132 

133 


131-130 

126 

123 

122 

121 

113 

111-106 

109 

107 

106 

104 

102 


102-99 

101 

100 


91 

80-88 

90 

88 

88-84 

87 

86 

84 

83 

83-81 

82 


79 

79-72 

78 

74-64 

74 


Destruction of Corinth, and subjugation of Greece. Capture 
and destruction of Carthage. 

War against the Celtiberians in Spain. Siege of Numantia. 

Peace with Viriathus. 

Viriathus murdered by hired assassins. 

The Gabinian law, ordaining vote by ballot at the elections. 

Final subjugation of the Lusitanians. C. Hostilius Mancinus 
concludes peace with the Numantines. The Cassian law, 
ordaining vote by ballot in the courts of law. 

Servile war in Sicily. 

Numantia taken and destroyed. Attalus of Pergamus dies, be¬ 
queathing his kingdom to the Roman people. Tribuneship 
of Tib. Sempronius Gracchus : is murdered. 

War against Aristonicus, who claimed the kingdom of Pergamus. 

First conquests of the Romans in Gaul. 

Tribuneship of C. Sempronius Gracchus. 

Second tribuneship of C. Sempronius Gracchus. 

Murder of C. Gracchus, and civil bloodshed at Rome. 

The Cimbri and Teutones begin their migration westward. 

The Jugurthine war. 

Q. Caecilius Metellus undertakes the command against Jugurtha : 
C. Marius. 

First consulship of C. Marius, who succeeds Metellus in Africa. 

Jugurtha taken prisoner by L. Cornelius Sulla. Birth of Cicero. 

Marius consul, and appointed to conduct the war against the 
Cimbri and Teutones. 

The Cimbri return from Spain, and are joined in Gaul by the 
Teutones. Battle of Aquae Sextiae, in which the Teutones 

are defeated. 

Second servile war in Sicily. 

The Cimbri defeated in the Campi Raudii. 

C. Marius consul for the sixth time. The seditious tribune, L. 
Appuleius Satuminus, and his party besieged in the Capitol, 
and afterwards put to death. 

The tribune, M. Livius Drusus, attempts to confer the franchise 
upon the Italian allies, but is murdered. 

The Social or Marsic war. 

The Lex Julia confers the franchise on the Latins. 

The Etruscans and Umbrians obtain the franchise. End of the 
Social War. 

First war against Mithridates. Civil war between Marius 
and Sulla. Marius flees to Africa. 

Marius returns to Rome. Scenes of horror at Rome. 

Siege and capture of Athens by Sulla. Marius dies in his seventh 
consulship. 

Peace concluded with Mithridates. 

Sulla returns to Italy, and is successful against his opponents. 

Second war against Mithridates. 

Capture of Praeneste. Young Marius kills himself. Battle at 
the Colline gate. Q. Sertorius goes to Spain. Sulla enters 
Rome. First proscription. Sulla dictator. Political and 
legal reforms. 

Sulla lays down his dictatorship, and withdraws to Puteoli. 

War against Sertorius. 

Death of Sulla. Commencement of the war against the pirates. 

Third war against Mithridates. 

Sertorius allies himself with Mithridates of Pontus. 





CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


617 


b.c. 73-71 
73 
72 
71 
70 
69 
67 

66 

65 


63 

62 

61 

59 

58 

57 

55 

54 

53 

52 

51 

ffO 

40 

48 

47 

46 


45 

44 

43 

42 

41 

40 

39 

38-36 

36 

34 

32 

31 

30 

29 

27 

25-13 ' 


Servile war in Italy. Spartacus. 

Lucullus defeats Mithridates. 

Muider of Sertorius at Osca. 

The slaves defeated by M. Licinius Crassus. 

Cn. Pompey consul. The political reforms of Sulla abolished. 

Lucullus defeats Tigranes and Mithridates at Tigranocerta. 

Cn. Pompey undertakes the war against the pirates. Lu¬ 
cullus recalled. 

Cn. Pompey obtains the command against Mithridates. 

Cn. Pompey pursues Mithridates into Albania and Iberia. J. 
Caesar is curule aedile, and puts himself at the head of the 
popular party. 

Mithridates, being conspired against by his own son, takes poison. 
Consulship of Cicero. Catalinarian conspiracy. 

Cn. Pompey returns to Italy. 

Caesar as propraetor in Spain. P. Clodius. 

J. Caesar consul. 

P. Clodius tribune. Cicero goes into exile. Caesar proceeds to 
Gaul. 

Cicero recalled. 

Caesar receives the administration of Gaul for five years more. 
He crosses the Rhine, and invades Britain. 

Caesar invades Britain a second time. Death of Julia, Caesar’s 
daughter. 

Caesar again crosses the Rhine. Crassus defeated in Syria. 

General insurrection in Gaul. Fall of Alesia. Pompey for a 
time sole consul. 

Caesar returns to Cisalpine Gaul. Claudius Marcellus proposes 
measures against Caesar. 

Caesar is called upon to disband his army. 

Caesar crosses the Rubicon. Pompey and his party flee from 
Italy. Caesar in Spain. On his return he is made dictator. 

Caesar consul. Battle of Pharsalus. 

Caesar defeats Pharnaces of Pontus: crosses over into Africa. 

Battle of Thapsus, in which the Pompeians in Africa are 
defeated Caesar reforms the calendar, and goes to Spain 
against the sons of Pompey. 

Battle of Munda : the Pompeians defeated. 

Caesar murdered. 

War of Mutina. The triumvirate between Octavanius, Antony, 
and Lepidus. Proscription. Death of Cicero. 

Battles of Philippi. 

War of Perusia. 

Capture and destruction of Perusia. War with the Parthians 
begins. 

Peace of Misenum with Sext. Pompeius. 

War against Sext. Pompeius. 

Sext. Pompeius defeated in the battle of Mylae. Lepidus deposed. 
Antony sustains great loss against the Parthians. 

Antony conqiiers Armenia, and gives it to Cleopatra. 

War declared against the queen of Egypt. 

Battle of Actium. 

Death of Antony and Cleopatra. 

Octavianus returns to Rome. 

Octavianus receives the title of Augustus and Imperatoi. Di¬ 
vision of the provinces. Augustus goes to Spain. 

War against the Alpine tribes. 







•C. 24 

23 

20 

19 

16-13 

12 

12-9 

8-6 

6 

5 or 4 

A..D. 4 

5 

6-9 

9 

14 

14-37 

14 

16 

19 

20 

23 

26 

31 

33 

37 

37-41 

39 

41 

41-54 

43 

50 

51 

54-68 

54 

61 

62 

64 

65 

66 

67 

68-69 

69 

69 

69-79 

70 

71 

74 

77-85 

79-81 

79 

80 

81-96 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


Augustus returns from Spain. 

Augustus obtains the tribunician power for life. 

The Partbians send back the Roman standards. 

The Cantabri finally subdued by Agrippa. 

Augustus in Gaul, to protect its eastern frontiers. 

Death of Lepidus and Agrippa. 

Drusus has the command against the Germans. 

Tiberius succeeds Drusus against the Germans. 

Domitius Ahenobarbus takes the command against the Germans. 
Birth of Jesus Christ. 

Tiberius resumes the war against the Germans. 

Western Germany a Roman province. 

War against the revolted Dalmatians and Pannonians. 

Defeat of Yarus. 

Death of Augustus. 

Reign of Tiberius. 

Revolt of the legions in Germany and Pannonia. 

Germanicus recalled from Germany. 

Germanicus dies in Syria. 

iElius Seianus guides the counsels of Tiberius. 

The castra praetoria established near Rome. Drusus, son of 
Tiberius, poisoned. 

Tiberius withdraws to Capreae. 

Execution of iElius Seianus. 

Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. 

Tiberius murdered by suffocation. 

Reign of Caligula. 

A conspiracy formed against Caligula. 

Caligula murdered. 

Reign of Claudius. 

Commencement of permanent conquests in Britain. 

Successful Avar against the Parthians. 

The south-eastern part of Britain a Roman province. 

Reign of Nero. 

Corbulo drives the Parthians from Armenia. 

Insurrection in Britain under Boadicea. 

Nero banishes Octavia. Burrus put to death. 

Great fire at Rome. 

Seneca the philosopher and Lucan the poet put to death. 
Tiridates recognised as king of Armenia. 

Nero goes to Greece. Insurrection of the Jews. Vespasian con¬ 
ducts the war against them. 

Servius Galba, is murdered. 

Salvius Otho, defeated at Bedriaeum, kills himself. 

Vitellius, is murdered in the praetorian camp. 

Vespasian. The siege of Jerusalem is left to Titus. 

Vespasian arrives at Rome. Capture and destruction of Jeru¬ 
salem. Insurrection of Claudius Civilis and the Batavi. 
Petilius Cerealis, governor of Britain, is accompanied by Agricola. 
Philosophers expelled from Rome. 

Agricola governor of Britain. 

Reign of Titus. 

First recorded eruption of Vesuvius, and destruction of Hercu¬ 
laneum, Pompeii, and Stabiae. 

Great fire at Rome. Completion of the Colosseum. 

Reign of Domitian. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


619 


A.D. 83 
84 
86 
90 
96-98 
98-117 
100 
103 
104-106 

114 

115 
117-138 

118 

120-131 

131-136 

138-161 

161-180 

162 

166 

167 

169 

175 

178 

180-192 

180 

183 

184 

185 
193 

193 

193-211 

194 

197 

198 
208 
210 

211-212 

212 

212-217 

213 

214 

215 

217- 218 

218- 222 
222-235 

226 

228 

231 

233 

234 

235-238 


Domitian undertakes an expedition against the Cliatti. 

Agricola defeats the Caledonians under Galgacus. 

The Dacians make war against the Romans. 

Domitian purchases peace of the Dacians. 

Reign of Nerva. 

Reign of Trajan. 

Trajan sets out against the Dacians. 

Peace with the Dacians. 

Second Dacian war, at the end of which Dacia becomes a Roman 
province. 

War against the Parthians. 

Armenia a Roman province. 

Reign of Hadrian; he makes the Euphrates the boundary in the 
East. 

Hadrian returns to Rome from the East. War against the Sar- 
matians. A conspiracy against him suppressed. 

Hadrian travels through the provinces of the empire. 

War against the Jews. 

Reign of Antoninus Pius. Peace throughout the empire. 

Reign of M. Aurelius. 

L. Yerus goes to the East against the Parthians. 

Peace concluded with the Parthians. 

War against the Marcomanni and Quadi. 

Death of L. Yerus. 

Peace with the Marcomanni concluded. Revolt of Avidius Cassius 
in the East. 

Renewal of the war against the Marcomanni. 

Reign of Commodus. 

Commodus purchases peace of the Marcomanni. 

Conspiracy against Commodus, headed by his sister Lucilla. 

War against the Caledonians terminated. 

Perennis recalled from Britain, and put to death. 

Reign of Pertinax lasts only three months. 

Reign of Didius Julianus. Purchases the imperial dignity, but 
reigns only two months. 

Reign of Septimius Severus. 

Pescennius Niger, who had been proclaimed in Syria, is defeated. 
The rebel Clodius Albinus defeated in Gaul. 

Severus carries on a successful war against the Parthians. 
Severus goes to Britain,which had been invaded by the Caledonians. 
The wall between the Tyne and Solway completed. 

Reign of Caracalla and Geta. 

Geta murdered by Caracalla. 

Caracalla reigns alone. 

Caracalla visits Gaul. 

He invades Germany, but purchases peace. 

Massacre at Alexandria in Egypt. 

Reign of Macrinus. Purchases peace of the Parthians. 

Reign of Elagabalus. 

Reign of Alexander Severus. 

Foundation of the new Persian empire of the Sassanidae on the 
ruins of that of Parthia. 

Ulpian the jurist murdered by the soldiers. 

Alexander Severus makes war upon the Persians. 

He returns to Rome, and triumphs. 

He proceeds to Gaul, to protect it against the Germans. 

Reign of Maximinus; is successful against the Germans. 





620 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


a.d. 238 
238 

238-244 

241 

244-249 

248 

249-251 

250 

251-253 

252 

253 

253-268 

256 

258 

260 

260-268 

261 

262 

264 

267 

268-270 

269 

270 
270-275 

272 

273 

274 

275 

275- 276 

276 

276- 282 

279 

282 

282-283 

283 


284-305 

286 

287-293 

292 

293 

295 

296 


Gordian and his son proclaimed emperors by the senate. 

Maximus and Balbinus made emperors by the senate. Young 
Gordian raised to the ranlk of Caesar. 

Reign of Gordian III. 

Gordian marries the daughter of Misitheus, and sets out against 
Sapor I., king of Persia. 

Reign of Philippus. Makes peace with the Persians. 

Ludi Saeculares at Rome. 

Reign of Decius. 

The Goths cross the Danube and invade Thrace. 

Reign of Gallus Trebonianus. 

Death of Hostilianus by the plague, which rages for fifteen years. 

iEmilianus proclaimed emperor in Moesia, but is murdered after 
a reign of four months. 

Valerian and Gallienus emperors. The barbarians invade the 
empire on all sides. 

Successful war against the Franks. 

Valerian sets out against the Persians. Postumus sets himself 
up as emperor in Gaul. 

Valerian taken prisoner by the Persians. 

Gallienus sole emperor. Period of the Thirty Tyrants. 

Macrianus assumes the purple. 

Aureolus proclaimed in Raetia. 

Odenathus of Palmyra recognised as an independent sovereign. 

Oderiathus is slain, and succeeded by his wife Zenobia. Tetricus 
sets himself up as emperor in Gaul. 

Claudius II., surnamed Gothicus, emperor. Defeats the Ale- 
manni. 

Claudius sets out against the Goths, who are defeated. 

Claudius dies at Sirmium. 

Reign of Aurelian; he concludes peace with the Goths. 

Aurelian proceeds to the East against Zenobia, who had invaded 
Egypt. 

Zenobia besieged at Palmyra and taken prisoner. 

Tetricus in Gaul submits to Aurelian. 

Aurelian murdered. Interreign of six months. 

Claudius Tacitus emperor, successful in the East. 

Annius Florianus emperor for scarcely three months. 

Probus defeats the barbarians in Gaul, and secures the German 
frontier. 

Probus reduces the Isaurians and Blemmyae. 

Probus murdered by his soldiers at Sirmium. 

Carus emperor. 

Cams with his son Numerianus sets out against the Persians, but 
dies at Ctesiphon. Numerianus and Macrinus recognised 
as emperors, but the former is murdered and the latter de¬ 
feated by Diocletian. 

Reign of Diocletian; he assumes Maximian as his colleague. 

Maximian defeats the Bagaudae in Gaul, and drives the Ale- 
manni across the Rhine. The Saxons. 

Carausius assumes the imperial dignity in Britain. 

Diocletian at Nicomedeia nominates Constantius, Chlorus, and 
Galerius Caesars. The empire divided among the four rulers. 

Carausius slain by Alectus, who maintains himself for a period of 
three years. 

Galerius defeats the Cam. 

Constantius defeats Alectus and recovers Britain. 









CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


621 


a.d. 298 

301 

303 

305 

305 

306 
306-337 

307 

310 

311 

312 

313 


314 

323 

325 

325-334 

332 

334 

337 

338 
340 

350 

351 

353 

354 

355 

356 

357 

360 

361 
361-363 

363 


363- 364 

364- 375 

365 

366 

367 

368 
370 


Galerius compels the Persians to conclude peace. 

Constantius defeats the Alemanni. 

The four sovereigns meet at Rome to devise means against Chris¬ 
tianity, which they attempt to suppress. 

Diocletian abdicates and retires to Salonae. Maximian follows 
his example. 

Constantius and Galerius succeed as emperors, but the former 
dies the year after. 

Constantine assumes the rank of Caesar in Britain. 

Reign of Constantine. 

Severus, one of the Caesars, put to death at Ravenna. Licinius 
raised to the imperial dignity by Galerius. 

Maximian commits suicide. 

Death of Galerius. 

War between Maxentius and Constantine. The former is de¬ 
feated, flees, and perishes in the Tiber. 

Maximinus defeated at Adrianople. Death of Diocletian. Con¬ 
stantine and Licinius the only surviving sovereigns. Edict 
in favour of the Christians. 

War between Constantine and Licinius, in which the latter, on 
being defeated, makes concessions to his conqueror. 

War between Constantine and Licinius, in which the latter is 
completely defeated, and Constantine remains sole emperor. 

The council of Nicaea. Orthodoxy defined. 

Extension and fortification of Constantinople. 

War against the Goths. 

A large body of Sarmatians receive settlements in the empire. 

Death of Constantine near Nicomedeia. Constantine II., 
Constantius, and Constans, divide the empire. 

Constantius commences war against Persia. 

War between Constantine II. and Constans, in which Jhe former 
is defeated and killed. Constans sole emperor of the West. 

Magnentius assumes the purple at Autun in Gaul. Death of 
Constans. 

War between Magnentius and Constantius, in which the former 
is defeated. 

Magnentius kills himself. Constantius sole emperor. 

Gallus is recalled from the East, and murdered at Pola. 

Silvanus assumes the purple in Gaul, but is slain. Julian ap¬ 
pointed to the command in Gaul. 

Successful campaign of Julian against the Germans. 

Julian clears the eastern frontier of Gaul from enemies. 

Julian proclaimed emperor at Paris. 

Death of Constantius. 

Reign of Julian the Apostate. 

Julian attempts to have the temple of Jerusalem rebuilt. Sets 
out from Antioch against the Persians. Gains a victory 
near Ctesiphon. Ts slain. 

Jovian emperor. Concludes peace with the Persians, who recover 
their lost provinces. 

Valentinian emperor. Associates his brother Valens with him¬ 
self in the empire. 

War between Valens and the usurper Procopius. 

The Alemanni repulsed in Gaul. Procopius defeated by Valensi 

Gratian, son of Valentinian, declared Augustus. 

The Alemanni again defeated. 

Peace concluded with the Goths. 



622 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


A.D. 371 
375 


376 

377 

378 

379 

383 

387 

388 

392 

394 

395 


397 

398 

402 

403 

406 

407 

408 


409 


410 

411 

412 

414 

415 


421 

423 

425 

426 

429 

430 

432 

433 
435 

438 


Saxon pirates cut to pieces. 

Valentinian takes the field against the Quadi and Sarmatians. 
Death of Yalentinian. The Huns cross the Volga, and 
throw themselves upon the Goths. Valentinian II. made 
Augustus, though only four years old. 

A portion of the Goths are allowed by Valens to settle in Moesia 
and Thrace. 

The Goths rise against the Romans. 

The Goths defeat Yalens with immense slaughter at Adrianople. 
Death of Valens. Gratian defeats the Alemanni. 

Gratian raises Theodosius I. to the rank of Augustus, who 
defeats the Goths. 

Revolt of Maximus in Britain. Death of Gratian. 

Maximus expels Valentinian II. from Italy. 

Theodosius sets out against Maximus, who is put to death 
Arbogastes guardian of Valentinian. 

Valentinian murdered in Gaul. Arbogastes proclaims Eugenius 
emperor. 

Theodosius defeats both Arbogastes and Eugenius near Aquileia. 

Death of Theodosius at Milan. He is succeeded by his sons 
Arcadius and Honorius, the former emperor of the East, 
and the latter of the West. Stilicho, guardian of Honorius, 
causes the murder of Rufinus, the guardian of Arcadius. 

Stilicho sets out against the Goths who are devastating Greece. 
Revolt of Gildo in Africa. 

Gildo defeated and killed. 

Alaric and his Goths invade Italy, but are induced to return. 

Alaric plunders the north of Italy. Battle of Pollentia. Peace 
with Alaric. 

The Goth Radagaisus with a numerous horde invades Italy; but 
is defeated and slain by Stilicho. The Vandals enter Gaul. 

Ravages in Gaul continued. Constantine in Britain usurps the 
imperial title, and crosses over into Gaul. 

Alaric again appears in Italy. Stilicho murdered. Alaric lays 
siege to Rome, which in the end capitulates. Death of 
Arcadius. 

Alaric again appears before Rome. Attalus proclaimed emperor 
instead of Honorius. The Vandals establish themselves in 
Spain. 

Alaric besieges and takes Rome the third time. Death of Alaric. 

The usurper Constantine taken and killed. 

Jovinus assumes the purple at Mayence. 

Peace between Adolphus and Honorius. 

Adolphus is murdered in Spain, and succeeded by Wallia, the 
founder of the empire of the Visigoths in Spain. The Bur¬ 
gundians and Franks become independent. 

Constantius made Augustus by Honorius. 

Death of Honorius. Joannes assumes the purple. 

Joannes is defeated. Valentinian III. emperor. 

The last Roman garrisons are withdrawn from Britain. 

Bonifacius invites the Vandals under their king Genseric to come 
to Africa. 

Bonifacius defeated by the Vandals at Hippo. 

War between Bonifacius and Aetius. 

Restoration of Aetius. 

Peace with Genseric, to whom a part of Africa is ceded. 

The Codex Thcodosianus published. 




CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 


623 


A.D. 439 

441 

442 

447 

450 

451 

452 

453 

454 

455 


456 

457-461 

460 

461 

465 

467-472 

468 

472 


473 

474 

475 

476 


Carthage taken by Genseric. 

The Huns under Attila cross the Danube. 

New peace with Genseric, in which further concessions are made 
to him. 

Attila invades Thrace and Thessaly. 

Death of Theodosius II., who is succeeded by Marcianus. 

Attila crosses the Rhine and invades Gaul. Battle of Chalons 
in which the Huns are defeated. 

Attila invades Italy. 

Death of Attila. 

Aetius murdered by Yalentinian. 

Valentinian slain by conspirators. Maximus, one of them, 
assumes the purple, but is killed by the soldiers. The Van¬ 
dals enter Rome, which they plunder and sack. Avitus 
proclaimed emperor in Gaul. 

Avitus is obliged to abdicate. Interregnum of more than a year. 
Ricimer has all the power in his hands. 

Majorian. 

Majorian goes to Spain, intending to cross over into Africa 
against the Vandals. 

Majorian deposed and put to death. Severus proclaimed, but 
Ricimer reigns in his name. 

Death of Severus, after which Kicimer rules until 467. 

Anthemius emperor. 

A great undertaking against the Vandals fails through the mis¬ 
conduct of Basiliscus. 

Civil war between Anthemius and Ricimer. The former is killed, 
and Ricimer having captured Rome, proclaims Olybrius 
emperor. Death of Ricimer and Olybrius. 

Glycerins proclaimed emperor. 

Julius Nepos made emperor. Deposes Glycerius. 

Nepos is dethroned by Orestes, who causes his son Romulus 
Augustulus to be proclaimed. 

Orestes defeated and slain at Placentia by the German troops 
under Odoacer. Romulus resigns his dignity. Odoacer, 
king of Italv. End of the Western Empire. 





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INDEX 


♦ 


Abdkra, 205. 

Abydos, 222, 299. 

Acanthos, 267. 

Acamania, 129, 299, 303. 

Acamanians, 355. 

Achaean League, 346, 348, &c. 

Achaeans, 142, &c., 158, 200, 348, &c., 359, 
459. 

Achaemenidae, 68. 

Achaeus, 365. 

Achaia, 133. 

Achilles, 568. 

Aqoka, 40. 

Acte, 532. 

Actium, 517. 

Adis, 438. 

Admetus, 239. 

Adolphus, 587, 588. 

Adrianople, 570, 571, 581. 
iEgatian Islands, 441. 
iEgeae, 320. 
yEgi cores, 180. 
iEgidius, 593, 595. 
jEgina, 198, 218, 228, 245. 
iEgion, 349. 
iEgospotami, 286. 
vEmihus /Emilianus, 560. 
jEneas, 380. 

iEolian Colonies, 151, 157, 191. 
iEolians, 142, &c., 151. 

JEquians, 401, &c., 411, 420, 421. 

Aeropus, 309. 
iEschines, 316, &c. 
iEschylus, 251. 

Aetius, 590, &c. 

/Etolia, 129. 

/Etolians, 336,349, 352, &c., 360. 

Afranius, 506. 

Agathocles, 345; (II.) 434. 

Agesilaus, 295, 297, &c., 308. 

Agesipolis, 301. 

Agiatis, 348. 

Agisl.,263; (II.) 276, 279, 280, 283, 295; 

(III.) 334; (IV.) 348. 

Agrarian Jaws, 401, 471, 472, &c., 498. 
Agricola, 539, &c. 

Agrigentum, 201, 433, 437. 

Agrippa, 516, 519, 521, 524. 

Agrippa Postumus, 625. 

Agrippina, 527; (II.) 531, 532. 

Agron, 94. 


AgyTrhius, 299. 

Alani, 564, 580. 

Alaric, 585, &c. 

Alba Longa, 379, 384, &c. 

Alhinus, Clodius, 553. 

Alcaeus, 208. 

Alcibiades, 269, &c. 

Alcmaeon, 183. 

Alcmaeonids, 185, 191,195, 196. 

Alectus, 567. 

Alemanni, 560, &c., 567, 568, 576, 578. 
Alesia, 503. 

Alpnoflop 99^ 

Alexander, 213, 231, 232; (II.) 306; (in). 
306, 310, 311; (IV.) 310 ; (V.) 320 ; (VI.) 
339; (VII.) 340, 341; (VIII.) 344. 
Alexander the Great, 28, 29, 57, 90, 31) 
320, &c. 

Alexandria, 327, 329, 368, 516, 555. 

Aliso, 522, 524. 

Allia, 410, 413. 

Allifae, 420. 

Altai, 9. 

Althaemenes, 200. 

Alyattes, 95, 204. 

Amasis, 124, 125. 

Ambracia, 317. 

Ambrose, 583. 

Ammianus Marcellinus, 576. 

Ammon, 328. 

Amphictionies, 176, 313, 318, 321. 
Amphipolis, 267, 311, 315. 

Ampliissa, 318. 

Amuhia, 79. 

Amulius, 380. 

Amyntas, 213. 

Amyrtaeus, 125; (II.) 246. 

Anacreon, 208. 

Anaximander, 210. 

Anaximenes, 209. 

Ancus Martius, 386, &c. 

Ancyra, 367. 

Anderion, 523. 

Andria, 162. 

Andriscus, 360, 459. 

Andros, 284. 

Antalcidas, 298, 299. 

Anthemius, 589; (II.) 595, 596. 

Antigonus, 325, &c., 338, &c. 

Antigonus Doson, 351. 

Antigonus Gonatas, 344, 346, 350, 351. 





626 


INDEX 


Antinous, 545. 

Antioch, 363, 528, 545, 555, 560, 561. 
Antiochus, 284. 

Antiochus the Great, 356, &c., 365, &c., 370, 
457. 

Antiochus Hierax, 364. 

Antiochus Soter, 364. 

Antiochus Theus, 57, 58, 364. 

Antiochus XIII., 366, 495. 

Antipater, 319, 323,334, &c., 338; (II.) 344. 
Antipater the Idumaean, 496. 

Antiphilus, 336. 

Antiphon, 281. 

Antonia, 533. 

Antoninus Pius, 547, 548. 

Antonius, Lucius, 514. 

Antonius, Marcus, 504. 

Antonius Primus, 536. 

Antony, Mark, 508, 511, &c. 

Anysis, 120. 

Aosta, 447. 

Apellico, 484. 

Appius Claudius, 405, &c. ; (II.) 424; (III.) 
436, 440. 

Appius Claudius the Blind, 427. 

Apries, 124. 

Apulia, 418, &c. 

Aquae Sextiae, 477, 501. 

Aquileia, 548, 558, 575, 582, 589, 592. 
Aquitania, 500. 

Araric, 574. 

Aratus, 346, 349, &c., 353. 

Arbogastes, 582. 

Arcadia, 133. 

Arcadians, 133, 304, 306, &c., 353. 

Arcadius, 582, &c., 589. 

Archelaus, 309; (II.) 482, 484, 489. 
Archestratus, 256. 

Archidamus, 241, 257, &c- 
Archilochus, 208. 

Archimedes, 450. 

Archons, 182, 237. 

Ardea, 392, 393. 

Ardishir, 556. 

Axdys 95 204. 

Areopagus, 188,189, 237, 243, &c., 292. 
Argades, 180. 

Argaeus, 311. 

Argolis, 133. 

Argonauts, 148. 

Argos, 173, 269, 316, 346, 350, 356. 

Ariaeus, 293. 

Aricia, 379, 417. 

Arion, 208. 

Arkmstus, 501, 502. 

Aristagoras, 213, &c. 

Aristides, 223, &c. 

Aristobulus, 325, &c. 

Aristohulus (of Judaea), 495. 

Aristodemus, 171. 

Aristogeiton, 194, 195, 334. 

Aristomenes, 173, 174. 

Aristonicus, 468, 469, 482. 

Aristophanes, 25 i, 292. 

Aristotle, 321, 484. 

Armenia, 367, 534, 545. 

Arminius, 523, 524, 528, 529. 


Arrhibaeus, 267. 

Arrhidaeus, 338. 

Arsaces, 364. 

Arsacidae, 500. 

Arsinoe, 345. 

Artabanes, 555. 

Artabanus, 293. 

Artahazus, 232, 233. 

Artaphernes, 214, 219. 

Artavasdes, 516. 

Artaxata, 494. 

Artaxerxes, 239, 244, 286, 293, 312, 324. 
Artemisium, 225. 

Arya, 25, &c., 51. 

As era, 207. 

Asculum, 427. 

Asia, 9, &c. 

Aspasia, 253. 

Aspendos, 299. 

Assyrians, 59, 60, 70, &c., 544. 

Astarte, 72. 

Astures, 521. 

Astyages, 60. 

Athanaric, 579, &c. 

Athenian Senate, 188, 189, 196. 

Athens, 132, 180, &c., 218, 228, 235, 253. 
&c., 259, 281, 290, 337, 342, 344, 348* 
355, 360, 460, 484, 546, 576, 585. 

Atlios, 222. 

Atilius Calatinus, 437. 

Attalus, 320,321; (II.) 355, 356, 364,468; 
(III.) 587. 

Attica, 132, 180, &c., 219, 222, 253, &c. 
Attila, 591, 592. 

Attok, 329. 

Augurs, 384. 

Augustin, 590. 

Augustulus, 596, 597. 

Augustus, 518, &c. 

Aulis, 343. 

Aurehan, 563. 

Aurelius, 547, &c. 

Aureolus, 562. 

Ausonius, 579. 

Autophradates, 334. 

Aventine, 406. 

Avidius Cassius, 549. 

Avitus, 594. 

Baal, or Belus, 79, 82. 

Babel, or Babylon, 71, &c., 328, 332, 303. 
Bacchylides, 251. 

Bactria, or Bactriana, 57, 58, 328, 329, 364. 
Baecula, 452. 

Bagaudae, 567, 586. 

Bagoas, 324, 325. 

Baiae, 547. 

Balbinus, 558. 

Balearic Islands, 432. 

Balista, 561. 

Barsine, 331, 339. 

Basiliscus, 595. 

Batavi, 539. 

Bedriacum, 535, 536. 

Belmina, 360. 

Benacus, 562. 

Beneventum, 428. 



INDEX 


627 


Berenice, 346. 

Berosus, 77. 

Bessus, 328. 

Bibracte, 501. 

Bitliynia, 367, 493, 496. 

Blemmyae, 565. 

Boadicea, 534. 

Bocchus, 476. 

Boeotia, 132. 

Boeotians, 223. 

Boians, 424, 425, 444, 457. 

Bonifacius, 590. 

Bovianum, 421, 422. 

Brahmins, 30, 31, 33. 

Brasidas, 266, &c. 

Brasideia, 268. 

Brennus, 346; (II.) 409, 410. 

Britain, 502, 531, 532, 534, 551, 678, 583, 
589. 

Britannicus, 532. 

Brundusium, 505, 516. 

Bruttians, 452. 

Brutus, 392; (M. Junius), 510, &c.; (Deci- 
mus), 511. 

Bucephala, 330. 

Buddhism, 29, 37, &e. 

Burgundians, 588, 591. 
liuxruB 532 

Byzantium, 201, 217, 236, 249, 284. 317, 
562, 571, 572. 

Cadmus, 144; (of Miletus), 209. 

Caecilius, 440. 

Caecina, 528. 

Caelian Hill, 386. 

Caere 393 

Caesar, Julius, 481, 495, 498; (Caius and 
Lucius), 524. 

Caledonians, 541, 551, 553. 

Caligula, 527, 529, 530. 

Callias, 256. 

Callicratidas, 285. 

Callimachus, 219. 

Callisthenes, 332. 

Callistus, 530. 

Camarina, 438. 

Cambyses, 62, 64, &c. 

Camillus, 408, &c. 

Campanians, 414, &c.; 422, 423, 436, 593 
Campi Raudii, 478. 

Candahar, 329. 

Candaules, 94, 95. 

Cannae, 449. 

Cantabri, 521. 

Canuleius, 407. 

Capehanus, 557. 

Capitol, 388, 404, 410, 536. 

Capitoline Hill, 382. 

Cappadocia, 367. 

Capreae, 526. 

Capua, 414, 449, 451, 491, 593 
Caracalla, 553. 

Caranuis, 309. 

Carausius, 567. 

Carbo, 486, 488. 

Carinus, 565. 

Caxneades, 464 


Carrhae, 500. 

Carthage, 93, 274, 427, 429, &c., 460, 590. 
Carus, 565. 

Casilinum, 448. 

Cassander, 338, &c., 344. 

Cassian Law, 470. 

Cassius (Caius), 500, 510; (Quintus), 604. 
Cassivelaunus, 502. 

Castes, 16, 17, 30, 104, &c. 

Castor, 398. 

Catana, 274, 275. 

Catiline, 487, 497, &c. 

Cato (the Censor), 460, 464, &c.; (of Utica), 
499, 509. 

Catulus, 478, 485. 

Catualda, 529. 

Caucasians, 99. 

Caudium, 419. 

Cecrops, 144, 180. 

Celtiberians, 445, 468. 

Celts, 345, 364, 376, &c., 409, 422, 444, 445. 
Censors, 407, &c. 

Cepliallenia, 303. 

Cephissus, 297. 

Cerasus, 494. 

Chabrias, 303. 

Chaeroneia, 318, 484. 

Chalcedon, 284, 555, 571. 

Chalcideus, 279, 280. 

Chaldaeans, 63, 80, &c. 

Chalons, 591. 

Chares, 312. 

Charon, 301. 

Cheirisophus, 294. 

Chemi, 96. 

Chersonesus, 285. 

Chians, 280, 312. 

China, 17, &c. 

Chinese Wall, 23. 

Christ 524 527. 

Christians,’533, 537, 542, 547, 557, 559, 566, 
568, 571, &c., 597. 

Cibalae, 570. 

Cicero, 495, 496, &c., 513. 

Cilicia, 492. 

Cimbri, 476. 

Cimon, 236, &c., 240, &c. 

Cinadon, 295. 

Cincinnatus, 403, 408. 

Cineas, 426. 

Cinna, 484. 

Circesium, 558. 

Cirta, 590. 

Citliaeron, 393. 

Civita Vecchia, 543. 

Clastidium, 444. 

Claudian, 586. 

Claudius (the Emperor), 530, &c.; (Civilis), 
539; (Gothicus), 562. 

Clazomenae, 279, 299. 

Cleander, 551. 

Cleisthenes, 195, &c. 

Cleitus, 325, &c., 332. 

Cleombrotus, 302, 304. 

Cleomedes, 271. 

Cleomenes, 195, Sec., 215, 218; (II.) 262; 
(III.) 348, Sec. 



628 


INDEX 


Cleon, 262, &c. 

Cleopatra, 320; (II.) 370; (III.) 371; (Queen 
of Egypt), 507, 516. 

Clients, 383. 

Clodius, 494, 499. 

Clovis, 594. 

Clupea, 438, 439. 

Clusium, 409, 410, 444. 

Cnidus, 297. 

Cniva, 559. 

Codrus, 160, 182, 200. 

Collatia, 392, 393. 

Collatinus, 392, 395. 

Colline gate, 486. 

Comitia, 389, 394, 424, 470. 

Commodus, 549, &c. 

Confucius, 19, 20. 

Conon, 285, 286, 297, &c. 

Constans, 574, 575; (II.) 588. 

Constantine (the Great), 569, &c.; (II.) 574, 
575; (III.) 586, 588. 

Consuls, 395. 

Constantius (Chlorus), 567, &c.; (II.) 574. 

&c.; (III.) 588. 

Constantinople, 571. 

Copts, 98. 

Corbio, 403. 

Corbulo, 531. 

Corcyra, 254, 262, 303. 

Corfinium, 480. 

Corinth, 254, 319, 320, 322, 343, 350, 361, 
459. 

Coriolanus, 400, &c. 

Cornelia, 471. 

Cornelius, 420. 

Coroneia, 297, 314. 

Corsica, 431, 437, 443, 466. 

Cos, 281. 

Cosenza, 587. 

Cosmoi, 162. 

Cotta, 490. 

Crannon, 337. 

Crassus, M. Licinius, 492, 498, 500. 
Craterus, 309; (II.) 325, &c., 331, 337, 339. 
Creniera, 402. 

Cremona, 444, 536. 

Cresphontes, 170. 

Crete, 134, 160. 

Crissaean War, 177. 

Critias, 287, &c. 

Critolaus, 361; (II.) 464. 

Croesus, 61, 62, 95,204. 

Croton, 210, 211. 

Ctesias, 63, 73. 

Ctesiphon, 544, 548, 577. 

Cumae, 199 ; in Italy, 201, 378. 

Cunaxa, 293. 

Curiatii, 385. 

Curio, 506. 

Cyaxares, 59, 60, 74, 75, 79. 

Cyclades, 134. 

Cyclic poets, 208. 

Cydnus, 326. 

Cylon, 184. 

Cynoscephalae, 306, 355. 

Cynossema, 283. 

Cyprus, 299, 499. 


Cyrene, 202, 369. 

Cyrupedion, 345. 

Cyrus, King of Persia, 57, 60, &c., 204; (II.) 

284, 286, 293, &c. 

Cythera, 265, 298, 313. 

Cytiniou, 318. 

Cyzicus, 283, 493. 

Dacians, 541, 543, 544, 563. 

Dadastana, 578. 

Dalmatia, 523, 595. 

Dalmatius, 574. 

Damascus, 327. 

Dunaus, 144, 146. 

Danube, 549. 

Darius, 67, &c., 125, 212, 218, 222; (Codo. 

maruius), 324, &c.; (Nothus), 293. 

Datis, 219. 

Daurises, 216. 

Decehalus, 541, 544. 

Decelea, 274, 276, 279. 

Decemvirs, 404. 

T'lppp-rifin c 

Decius, Publius, 416, 422; (Mus), 415 ; (the 
Emperor), 559. 

Deioces, 59. 

Delium, 266. 

Delos, 200. 

Delphi, 131, 227, 246, 313, 316, 346. 

Delta, 97. 

Demades, 334. 

Demetrius Phalereus, 341,342; (Poliorcetes), 
339, &c., 342, &c.; (III.) 351; (IV.) 853, 
445; (V.) 358. 

Demi, 196. 

Demochares, 342, 345. 

Democritus, 360. 

Demonax, 202. 

Demosthenes (the general), 263, &c., 276, 
277. 

Demosthenes (the orator), 314, &c., 322,335, 
337. 

Dentatus, 428. 

Dercyllidas, 294. 

Diadumenianus, 555. 

Diaeus, 360, See. 

Dido, 429. 

Diocletian, 566, &c. 

Diodorus Siculus, 73, 115. 

Diogenes, 464. 

Dionysius (the elder), 433; (the younger), 
305, 434. 

Dolabella, 508. 

Domitia, 542. 

Domitian, 536, 540, &c. 

Domitius Ahenobarbus, 522; (Corbulo), 534, 
Dorian Colonies, 200. 

Dorian Pentapolis, 201 
Dorians, 134, 141, &c., 157, 223. 

Doris, 131. 

Draco, 184. 

Drepana, 440. 

Druids, 501 

Drusus, 521, 522; (son of Tiberius), 527. 
Duilius, 437. 

Dymanes, 166. 

Dyrrhachium, 506. 



INDEX 


629 


Ecbatana, 59, 66. 

Ecclesiae, 189, 196, 

Ecnomus, 438. 

Edessa, 555, 561. 

Egeria, 384. 

Egesta, 271, &c. 

Egypt, 96, &c., 325, 337, 363, 367, &c., 462, 
562. 

Elagabalus, 555. 

Elateia, 318. 

Elea, 205, 209. 

Eleusis, 344. 

Elis, 133. 

Emesa, 555. 

Empedocles, 210. 

Epaminondas, 301, &c. 

Ephesus, 215, 216. 

Ephialtes, 226; (II.) 243, &c. 

Ephors, 167,172, 290, 347, 348, 352. 
Epictetus, 542. 

Epidamnus, 254. 

Epidaurus, 270. 

Epimenides, 186. 

Epitadas, 264. 

Equites, 473. 

Eretria, 279. 

Erytbrae, 219. 

Eryx, 441. 

Etruscans, 375, 376, 377, 396, 402, 411, 420, 
8tc 425 

Euboea, 279, 317. 

Euclierius, 586. 

Eucratidas, 58. 

Eudamidas, 301. 

Eudoxia, 593. 

Eugenius, 582. 

Eumenes, 338, &c.; (of Pergamus), 457. 
Euxms, 471. 

Euric, 595. 

Eurybiades, 225, 229. 

Eurymedon, 276, 277; (in Pampbylia), 241. 
Euripides, 252, 292. 

Eusebia, 576. 

Eusebius, 574. 

Eutropius, 585. 

Fabii, 402. 

Fabius Maximus, 420, 423, (II.) 448, 451. 
Fabius, Quintus, 422, 446. 

Fabricius, 425, &c. 

Faesulae, 586. 

Faustina, 549. 

Fidenae, 382, 385, 408, 528. 

Fimbria, 484. 

Firdusi, 56. 

Flaccus, 473,474. 

Flamens, 384. 

Flamininus, 355, &c. 

Flaminius, Caius, 444, 448. 

Florianus, 564. 

Fo, 41. 

Franks, 560, 561, 576, 588. 

Fregellae, 418, &c. 

Fritigem, 581. 

Fronto, 546. 

Fucine Lake, 53 
Fulvia, 513, 514. 


Gabinian Law, 470. 

Gabinius, 492. 

Gainas, 585. 

Galatians, 346, 367. 

Galba, Servius Sulpicius, 467; (the Em¬ 
peror), 533, 535. 

Galerius, 567, 568. 

Galgacus, 541. 

Galla, 582. 

Galla Placidia, 587, &c. 

Gallia Cisalpina, 444, 457. 

Gallienus, 560, 561. 

GaUus, 575, 576. 

Gallus, iElius, 521. 

Gallus Trebonianus, 559, 560. 

Gaugamela, 328. 

Gaul, 499, &c. 

Gauls, 409, &c., 425, 444, 447. 

Gaurus, 415. 

Gaza, 365. 

Gedrosia, 330. 

Gela, 201, 266. 

Gelo, 224, 431. 

Genseric, 590, 591, 593, &c. 

Genucius, 401. 

Germanicus, 527, 528. 

Germans, 521, &c., 528, 531, 549, 557, 559, 
565, 597. 

Gessius Floras, 538. 

Geta, 554. 

Getae, 322. 

Gildo, 585. 

Glabrio, 357; (M.’Acilius), 494. 

Glaucia, 478, 479. 

Glycerius, 596. 

Gordian, 557; (II.) 558. 

Gordium, 326. 

Gotbs, 559, &c., 574, 579, &c., 586. 
Gracchus (Caius), 472, &c.; (Cloelius), 402, 
403; (Tiberius), 450, 457, 471, &c. 
Granicus, 326. 

Gratian, 578, 579, 581, 5S2. 

Greece, 127, &c. 

Gundobald, 596. 

Gyges, 94, 95, 204. 

Gylippus, 274, &c. 

Gythium, 305. 

Hadrian, 193, 544, &c. 

Haliartos, 296. 

Halicarnassus, 200, 326. 

Hamilcar, 431, 434; (II.) 440, &c., 442, 
445. 

Hannibal, 353, 356, 445, &c., 457. 
Hannibalianus, 574. 

Hanno, 446. 

Harmodius, 194, 195, 334. 

Harmosts, 296. 

Harpagus, 205. 

Harpalus, 335. 

Ilasdrabal, 445 ; (II.) 447, 451, 452. 
Hecataeus, 215. 

Hegesistratus, 193. 

HeBaea, 189, 196. 

Hellas, 128, &c. 

Hellenes, 127, &c., 138, &c. 

Hellespont, 222. 



630 


INDEX 


Helos, 305. 

Helots, 159, 165, 166, 170, 172. 

Helvetii, 501. 

Helvidius Priscus, 537. 

Hepliaestion, 325, &c. 

Heracleia, 336, 361. 

Heracleids, 94. 

Heracles (the Hero), 147; (the son of Alex¬ 
ander the Great), 339. 

Heraclitus, 209. 

Herat, 329. 

Herculaneum, 540. 

Herdonius, 404. 

Hermaeum (Cape), 439. 

Hermes, 272. 

Hermocrates, 266, 274, &c. 

Hernicans, 420, 421. 

Herod, 496. 

Herodes Atticus, 546. 

Herodotus, 60, 63, 64, 115, 259. 

Hesiod, 156, 207, 378. 

Hiero, 435, &c., 450. 

Hieronymus, 450. 

Himera, 201, 230, 275, 431, 433. 

Hindoo Mythology, 34, &c. 

Hindoos, 25, &c. 

Hipparchus, 194, &c. 

Hippias, 194, &c., 215, 219. 

Hippomenes, 183. 

Hipponax, 208. 

Hippo Regius, 430, 590. 

Hixtius, 512. 

Histiaeus, 213, &c. 

Homer, 156, 207. 

Homeric poems, 149, &c., 193, 378. 

Honoria, 592. 

Honorius, 582, &c. 

Hopletes, 180. 

Horatii, 305. 

Horatius Codes, 396. 

Hostilianus, 559. 

Huns, 580. 

Hycsos, 116, &c. 

Hylleans, 166. 

Hyperides, 336, 337. 

Hyrcanus, 495. 

Iapygian Language, 375. 

Iberians, 445. 

Ibycus, 208. 

Illyricum, 317, 320, 322, 336, 352, 353, 443, 
445, 499 
lnarus, 244. 

India, 24, &c. 

Indo-Germanic Race, 11,12. 

Lnsubrians, 444, 457. 

Ionian Colonies, 200, &c. 

Ionians, 141, &c., 158, &c., 469. 

Iphicrates, 298, 299, 304, 305, 310, 312. 
Ipsus, 340. 

Iran, 49, &c. 

Isagoras, 196, 197. 

Isauri, 561. 

Iscander, 333. 

Ismenias, 301. 

Issus, 327, 552. 

Isthmian games, 178, 356. 


Italica, 543. 

Italicus, 531. 

Italy, 373, &c. 

Ithome, 171, 172, 242, 305. 

Janus, 384, 517. 

J ason (of Pherae), 306. 

Jerusalem, 536, 538, 546. 

J ews, 534, 538, 546. 

Joannes, 589. 

Jotapata, 538. 

Jovian, 578. 

Jovinus, 588. 

Juba, 508. 

Jugurtha, 474, &c. 

Julia, 524, 525; (Domna), 554. 

Julian-the Apostate, 575, &c. 

Julian, 568; (Didius), 552. 

Julius Nepos, 596. 

Justina, 582. 

Juvenal, 550. 

Kalidasa, 45. 

Kshatriyas, 31. 

Laconia, 133. 

Lamachus, 272, &c. 

Lamia, 336. 

Laniian War, 336, 337. 

Lampsacos, 239, 286. 

Larcius, 397. 

Latins, 375, 379, 386, 397, 416, 417, 419, 
481. 

Latium, 379, 415. 

Lautulae, 420. 

Lechaeon, 298. 

Leo I. (the Pope), 592; (the Emperor), 595, 
597. 

Leochares, 343. 

Leonidas, 225; (II.) 348. 

Leonnatus, 336. 

Leontini, 263. 

Leosthenes, 311, 336. 

Leotychides, 233. 

Lepidus, 489; (the Triumvir), 512, &c. 
Lesbos, 199, 279. 

Leucopetra, 361. 

Leuctra, 304. 

Libius Severus, 595. 

Libyans, 430, 442. 

Licinian Law, 412, 425, 471. 

Licinius Stolo, 412; (the Emperor), 569, &c. 
Ligurians, 443, 457, 466. 

Lilybaeum, 440. 

Liris, 531. 

Livia, 524. 

Livius Drusus, 474, 479, 480. 

Locrians, 318. 

Lucan, 533. 

Lucania, 418, 421, 422, 425. 

Luceres, 383, 388. 

Luceria, 419. 

Lucretia, 392, 393. 

Lucullus, 493. 

Lucumons, 377. 

Lusitania, 467, 498. 

Lutatius Catulus, 441. 



INDEX 


631 


Lyceum, 193. 

Lycia, 204, 205. 

Lycophron, 312, 314. 

Lycortas, 358. 

Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver, 162, fee.; 
(II.) 191, 192; (III.) 319, 322; (the 
Ephor), 348; (V.) 352, 354. 

Lydia, 93, &c., 204, 469. 

Lygdamis, 193. 

Lysander, 279, 284, &c., 295. 

Lysandra, 345. 

Lysias, 249. 

Lysimachia, 345. 

Lysimachus, 339, 343, fee. 

Macedonia, 308, &c., 359, 361, 458, fee. 
Machanidas, 354. 

Macrianus, 562. 

Macrinus, 555. 

Macro, 527. 

Maeandrius, 212. 

Maecenas, 519. 

Maesa, 555. 

Magi, 64, 67, 69. 

Magna Graecia, 201, 378. 

Magnentins, 575. 

Magnesia (in Asia), 205, 239; (in Thessaly), 
314, 366. 

Mago, 430. 

Majorian, 594. 

Malchus, 430. 

Maleventum, 422. 

Malli, 330. 

Mamertines, 435, 436. 

Manmiaea, 556. 

Mancinus, 468. 

Manetho, 115, 116, 369. 

Manilius, 494. 

Manlius (Capitolinus), 410, fee.; (Lucius), 
438; (Torquatus), 413, 416. 

Mantineia, 270, 300, 304, 307, 350, 354. 
Marathon, 219, 220, 222. 

Marcellinus, 595. 

Marcellus, 444, 450; (II.) 504. 

Marcia, 551. 

Marciana, 543. 

Marcianus, 593. 

Marcius, 420. 

Marcomanni, 523, 529, 541, 548. 

Mardonius, 218, 229, &c. 

Marius, (the elder), 475, &c., 498; (the 
younger), 486. 

Maroboduus, 523, 529. 

Marsic War, 480. 

Marsians, 420, 480. 

Masinissa, 453, &c., 460, &c., 475. 
Massagetae, 63. 

Maesilia, 203, 501, 506. 

Massiva, 475. 

Maxentius, 569, 570. 

Maximian, 567, &c. 

Maximlnus, 557, 558; (Daza), 569, 570. 
Maximus, 557; (II.) 582; (III.) 593. 
Mazares, 205. 

Media, 59, &c. 

Medon, 182. 

Megabazus, 213. 


Megacles, 184,185; (II.) 191,192. 
Megalopolis, 304, 316, 334, 340, 351, 362. 
Megara, 266. 350. 

Megaris, 132. 

Meleager, 369. 

Melissus, 210. 

Melos, 271. 

Memmius, 475, 479. 

Memnon, 324, 326. 

Memphis, 338. 

Menenius Agrippa, 399. 

Meonians, 94. 

Mermnadae, 94. 

Meroe, 99, 100. 

Mesopotamia, 544. 

Messalla, 519. 

Messalina, 530. 

Messana, 435, 436. 

Messapians, 426. 

Messenia, 133, 170, 242, 305, 308, 358. 
Metaurus, 452. 

Metellus, 361, 459; (II.) 475, fee., 478: 

(Scipio), 504, 508. 

Milan, 562, 566. 

Miletus, 200, 203, 217, 280. 

Milo, 211. 

Miltiades, 213, 217, &c. 

Mimnermus, 208. 

Mindarus, 282, 283. 

Minos, 148, 161. 

Minturnae, 483. 

Minucius, 403. 

Miaitlipno 

Mithridates Y., 469, 482; (YI.) 482, fee., 489 
493. 

Mizraim, 96. 

Moesia, 541, 545, 559, 580, 581. 

Mona, 534. 

Mongols, 17. 

Mucianus, 536. 

Mucius Scaevola, 396, 397. 

Mummius, 361, 362, 459. 

Munda, 509. 

Munychia, 235, 337, 342, 344. 

Murena, 489. 

Mursa, 575. 

Mutina, 512. 

Mycale, 233. 

Mylae, 437, 516. 

Myronides, 245, &c. 

Mytileneans, 193, 261, fee. 

Myttistratum, 438. 

Myus, 239. 

Nabis, 354, 356. 

Nabonnedus, 63. 

Nabopolassar, 60, 74. 

Naissus, 562. 

Nai-bo Marcius, 501. 

Narcissus, 530; 

Narses, 565. 

Naxos, 214, 219, 240, 275, 303. 

Neapolis, 418. 

Nearchus, 330. 

Nebuchadnezzar, 77, 79, 91. 

Necho, 77, 85, 123, 124. 

Nectanebos, 325. 



032 


INDEX 


Nem£fusus, 546, 547. 

Nemea, 297. 

Nemean Games, 178. 

Neon, 313. 

Nero, 525, 531, &c. 

Nerva, 542. 

New Carthage, 445, 447, 451 
Nicaea, 330. 

Nicanor, 340. 

Nicene Council, 572. 

Nicias, 265, &c. 

Nicomedeia, 566, 567, 574 
Nicomedes III., 367, 493. 
Nicopolis, 495; (II.) 517. 

Nineveh, 60, 71. 

Ninus, 57, 72. 

Ninyas, 72. 

Nisibis, 544, 578. 

Nitocris, 78. 

Nola, 450, 483, 525, 593. 
Norbanus, 486. 

Noreia, 477. 

Numantia, 468. 

Numa Pompilius, 383. 
Numerianus, 565. 

Numidia, 462. 

Numitor, 380. 

Oasis of Siwah, 328. 

Ochus, 324, 325. 

Octavianus, 512, &c. 

Octavius, 472; (II.) 484, 485. 
Odenatlms, 561, 562. 

Odoacer, 596, 597. 

(Enophyta, 245. 

Ogulnian Law, 424, 

Olybrius, 596. 

Olympia, 133, 307. 

Olympias, 320, 338. 

Olympic Games, 134,177. 
Olympus, 129. 

Olynthos, 256, 300, 315. 
Onomarclius, 313, 314. 

Ophelias, 434. 

Opimius, 474. 

Orchomenos, 303, 314, 484. 
Orestes, 309; (II.) 596. 

Orodes, 500. 

Oropos, 319, 360. 

Osca, 490. 

Ostia, 387, 492, 531, 587. 
Ostracism, 196. 

Otho, 535. 

Oxylus, 158. 

Paches, 262. 

Paetus Thrasea, 537 
Pagans, 583. 

Pagodas, 47, 48. 

Palatine Hill, 380. 

Palestine, 365, 366. 

Palinurus, Cape, 439. 

Pallas, 530. 

Palmyra, 561, 562. 

Pamphilians, a Spartan tribe, 166. 
Panathenaea, 181. 

Pandatoria, 532, 


Panionium, 202. 

Pannonia, 523, 528. 

Panormus, 439. 

Pansa, 512. 

Papinian, 553, 554. 

Papirius Cursor, 420. 

Pariahs, 33. 

Parmenides, 210. 

Parmenio, 320, &c., 325, &c., 332. 

Parnassus, 131. 

Parsi, 54. 

Partliamaspates, 544. 

Parthenon, 250. 

Parthia, 364, 500, 516, 521, 531, 534, 544, 
548, 553, 555. 

Parysatis, 293. 

Patricians, 386, 387, 390, 394, 395, 398, 404, 
&c., 412, 417, 424. 

Paul, 533. 

Paulinus, 534. 

Paullus, 359, 445, 449. 

Pausanias, 231, &c., 236, &c., 297; (II.) 289; 

&c.; (III.) 309; (IV.) 310, 311; (V.) 320. 
Pavia, 596. 

Pelasgians, 94, 138, 374. 

Pelignians, 420. 

Pella, 310. 

Pelopidas, 301, &c. 

Peloponnesus, 29, 132, &c. 

Peloponnesian War, 253, &c. 

Pelops, 144. 

Perdiccas, 256, 267; (II.) 310, &c., 333, 338. 
Perennis, 551. 

Pergamos, 367, 462, 468, &c. 

Pericles, 242, &c. 

Perinthos, 317. 

Perperna, 469; (II.) 491. 

Persepolis, 328. 

Perseus, 146; (II.) 358, &c., 458. 

Persians, 49, &c., 91,197, 292, 323, &c., 556, 
558, 560, 577. 

Pertinax, 551, 552. 

Perusia, 423, 515. 

Pescennius Niger, 552. 

Petilius Cerealis, 539. 

Peter, 533. 

Petreius, 506, 509. 

Phalaecus, 314, 316. 

Phaleron, 235. 

Pharaohs, 104, 105. 

Pharnabazus, 283, 284, 294, &c.; (II.) 334. 
Pharnaces, 495, 507, 508. 

Pharsalus, 507. 

Phayllus, 314. 

Pheidon, 173, 309. 

Pherae, 315. 

Pherecydes, 208. 

Phidias, 250, 252. 

Philip, king of Macedonia, 306, 309, &c.; 
(II.) 326; (IV.) 344 j (V.) 351, 352 ; &c.; 
(VI.) 558, 5591 
Philippi, 514. 

Philomelus, 313. 

Philopoemen, 351, 354, &c. 

Philotas, 332. 

Phlius, 300. 

Phocaea, 203, 205. 




INDEX. 


633 


Phocians, 223, 313, fee. 

Phocion, 317, fee., 340. 

Phneis, 131. 

Phoebidas, 301. 

Phoenicia, 83, &c., 324. 

Phormio, 260. 

Phraates, 516. 

Phraortes, 59. 

Phrynichus, 251, 280, fee. 

Phul, 74. 

Phyle, 289. 

Picenum, 545. 

Pindar, 208, 251, 323. 

Piraeus, 235, 289, 344. 

Pisander, 296, 297; (II.) 281, 283. 
Pisistratus, 191, &c. 

Piso, 528; (Calpurnius), 533; (Licinianus), 535. 
Pistoria, 497. 

Placentia, 444, 594, 596. 

Plague at Athens, 259. 

Plataeans, 219, 223, 227, 232, 257, 260, 303. 
Plato 292 

Plebeians, 383, 386, 387, 389, 395, 396, 404, 
&c., 412, 413, 417, 424. 

Pleistarchus, 231. 

Pliny, the elder, 540; the younger, 540. 
Plotina, 543, 544. 

Plutarch, 546. 

Pollentia, 586. 

Pollio, 519. 

Pollux, 398. 

Polybiades, 301. 

Polybius, 358, 360, 432, 459. 

Polycrates, 206, 210. 

Polysperchon, 338, 340, 342. 

Pompeii, 540. 

Pompeius Rufus, 484. 

Pompey, 366, 488, 494, fee., 507, Cneius and 
Sextus, 509, 515. 

Pontiffs, 384. 

Pontius, 419, 423; Telesinus, 488. 

Pontus, 367, 482, &c. 

Poppaea Sabina, 532, 533. 

Porsenna, 396, &c. 

Porto, 593. 

Porus, 329, 330. 

Posidonia, Paestum, 202. 

Postumius, 419. 

Postumus, 560, 561. 

Potidaea, 256, &c., 301. 

Praetor, 413. 

Priene, 204, 205. 

Probus, 563, 564. 

Procopius, 579. 

Prudentius, 586. 

Prusias, 354, 457. 

Prytaneum, 191. 

Psammenitus, 65, 125. 

Psammetichus, 121, &c. 

Psammis, 124. 

Pseudo-Philip, 360, 361. 

Ptolemy Alorites, 310; (Ceraunus), 345, 
369 ; (Dionysus), 507; fEuergetes), 364, 
369, fee.; (Epiphanes), 355, 370; (Phila- 
delphus), 369, 429; (Pliilometor), 371 ; 
(Philopator), 370; (Soter), 325, fee., 338, 
&c., 341, 367, &c. 


Publilius Pliilo, 417; (Volero), 404. 
Pulcheria, 592. 

Punic Wars. 436, fee., 446, &c., 460, fee. 
Punjaub, 329. 

Pydna, 359, 459. 

Pylos, 263, &e. 

Pyramids, 113,114. 

Pyrrhus, 344, 346, 426, &c., 43i. 
Pythagoras, 210, fee. 

Pythian Games, 178, 316. 

Quintilltjs, 563. 

Quirinal Hill, 382. 

Quirinus, 382. 

Radagaisus, 586. 

Raetia, 562. 

Rameses, 118, 119. 

Ramnes, 383. 

Rando, 578. 

Rasena, 376. 

Ravenna, 504, 505, 529, 585, 689, 5S6. 
Regilius, Lake, 398. 

Regulus, 438, fee. 

Remus, 380. 

Rhea Silvia, 380. 

Rhegium, 273, 378, 428, 436. 

Rhodes, 299, 459. 

Rhone, 447. 

Ricimer, 594, fee. 

Romans, 332, 353, fee., 436, &c. 

Rome, 379, fee., 410, 411, 587, 696. 
Romulus, 380, fee. 

Rosetta Stone, 103. 

Roxana, 329, 339. 

Rubicon, 505. 

Rufinus, 584, 585. 

Rufus, 533. 

Sabaco, 119. 

Sabellians, 375, 379,414, 480. 

Sabines, 382, 397. 

Sabinus, 536. 

Sacred Mount, 399. 

Sacred Wars, 313, 316, 318. 

Sadyattes, 95, 204. 

Saguntum, 446. 

Salamis, 227, 229, 286; (in Cyprus), 339. 
Salii, 384. 

Salmanassar, 74, 91. 

Samnites, 375, 414, &c., 418, fee., 428, 480. 
Samos, 206, 207, 233, 248, 281, 319. 
Sanscrit, 34. 

Sappbo, 208. 

Sapor I., 558. 

Sardanapalus, 73, 75. 

Sardes, 216, 296. 

Sardinia, 431, 437, 443, 466. 

Sarmatians, 545, 549, 565, 574, 679. 
Sassanidae, 58, 556. 

Saturninus, 478, 479. 

Saxons, 567, 579, 589. 

Scarpheia, 459. 

Scione, 268. 

Scipio Nasica, 472. 

Scipios, 366, 447, &c., 451, &c., 457,461, 468, 
Scythia, 9. 




634 


INDEX 


Segestes, 523, 528. 

Seianus, 525, &c. 

Seleucia, 363, 544, 548. 

Seleucus I., 339, 343, 363; (II.) 364, 365; 

(III.) 365; (IV.) 366. 

Selinus, 271, 544. 

SeUasia, 351. 

Semiramis, 57, 72. 

Semitic Race, 11,12. 

Sempronius Longus, 447. 

Senate (of Rome), 383, 388, 394, 519. 

Seneca, 532, 533. 

Sennacherib, 120. 

Senones, 424. 425. 

Sentinum, 422. 

Sepias (Cape), 225. 

Septuagint, 369. 

Sertorius, 490. 

Servile War, 491. 

Servilius Ahala, 408. 

Servius Tullius, 387, 389, 394. 

Sesostris, 117, 119. 

Sestos, 234, 323. 

Sethos, 120, 121. 

Severus, 546; (Alexander), 556, 557; (Sep- 
timius), 552; (Valerius), 569. 

Seven Sages, 209. 

Sextius (Lucius), 412. 

Sicily, 201, 427, 429, &c., 471. 

Sicyon, 349, 360. 

Sidicines, 414. 

Sidon, 84, &c., 324. 

Silarus, 492. 

Silvanus, 576. 

Simonides (of Cos), 251. 

Sinope, 4S9. 

Siris, 426. 

Sirmium, 549, 562, 566. 

Sitalces, 259. 

Smerdis, 66. 

Social Wars, 312, 352, 480. 

Socrates, 286, 292. 

Sogdianus, 293. 

Soissons, 594. 

Solon, 62, 177, 185, &c. 

Sophocles, 251, 292. 

Sophonisbe, 453. 

Sosicles, 198. 

Crvcf’Vl PY1 PC Q4X 

Spam, 445, &c.’, 457, &c, 467, &c., 490, 506, 
588. 

Sparta, 162, &c., 218, 241, 253, See., 290, 344, 
347, &c., 354, 357, &c. 

Spartacus, 491, 492. 

Spartans, 195, &c., 219, 221, 460. 

Sphacteria, 264. 

Spoletium, 448, 560. 

Sporades, 134. 

Spurius Cassius, 398, 400, &c.; (Maelius), 
408. 

Stabiae, 540. 

Stageiros, 267. 

Stesichorus, 208. 

Stilicho, 584, &c. 

Strasshurg, 576. 

Suffetes, 433. 

Sulla, 362, 476, 478, &c. 


Sulpicius Galba, 355; (Publius), 483. 

Susa, 339. 

Syagrius, 594. 

Sybaris, 211, 378. 

Syloson, 212. 

Symmacbus, 579. 

Syphax, 451, 453. 

Syracuse, 201, 263, 273, &c., 433, &c., 45C. 
Syria, 363, 495, 562. 

Syssitia, 162. 

Tacitus, 539 ; (Claudius), 564. 

Taenaron, 335. 

Tanagra, 245. 

Tarentum, 421, 425, &c., 450, 451. 

Tarpeian Rock, 411. 

Tarquins, 377, 387, 388, 390, &c., 396, &c. 
Tarsus, 564, 570. 

Tatius (Titus), 382. 

Taxiles, 329. 

Telamon, 444. 

Teleontes, 180. 

Teleutias, 299. 

Terentillus Arsa, 404. 

Terillus, 431. 

Tetricus, 562, 563. 

Teuta, 443. 

Teutones, 477. 

Thales, 209, 210. 

Thapsus, 508. 

Thebes (in Egypt), 101, 118; (in Greece), 
132, 301, &c., 319, 321, &c., 341, 361. 
Theagenes, 184. 

Themistocles, 223, &c. 

Thpnr*lpc QA1 

Tbeodoric I. 591; (II.) 594; (HI.) 597. 
Theodosius I. 581, &c.; (II.) 589, 591, 692. 
Tberamenes, 281, 282, 285, 287. 
Thermopylae, 130, 224, &c., 321, 336, 357, 
366, 459. 

Thermos, 349, 353. 

Theseus, 147, 181. 

Tbespiae, 223, 227, 303. 

Thespis, 208. 

Thessalians, 157, 317, 321. 

Thessalonice, 344. 

Thessaly, 129, &c. 

Tliimhron, 294. 

Thirhaka, 120. 

Thirty Tyrants, 287, &c., 561. 

Thrace, 363. 

Thrasybulus, 281, 282, 288, &c., 291, 299. 
Thrasyllus, 282, 284. 

Thucydides, 247; (the historian), 267, 292. 
Thurn, 249, 273, 425, 426. 

Thusnelda, 528. 

Tiberius, 521, 522, 525, &tc. 

Tibet, 43. 

Ticinus, 447. 

Tiglath-pileser, 74. 

Tigranes, 494. 

Tigranocerta, 494. 

Timoleon, 433. 

Timotheus, 303, 312. 

Tiribazus, 298, 299. 

Tiridates, 534. 

Tisamenus, 158. 





INDEX 


635 


Tissaphernes, 280. &c., 294, &c. 

Tithraustes, 296, sc. 

Tities, 383. 

Titus, 536, 538, 539, &c. 

TomyTis, 63. 

Torismund, 691. 

Torone, 268. 

Toulouse, 588. 

Trajan, 542, &c. 

Trasimene Lake, 448. 

Trebia, 447. 

Treves, 566, 579. 

Triballi, 322. 

Tribes (in Rome), 389. 

Tribunes of the plebs, 399, 404, 412. 
Tripolis, 324. 

Triton (Lake), 430. 

Triumvirate, (1st) 498; (2d) 512. 

Troezen, 228, 335. 

Trojan War, 149, 325. 

Tullia, 390. 

Tullus Hostilius, 384, &c. 

Tunis, 429. 

Tyre, 84, 8sc., 327. 

Tyrrhenians, 274. 

Tyrtaeus, 173. 

Twelve Tables, 405. 

(Jlphilas, 579. 

Ulpian, 553, 556. 

Ulpius Marcellus, 551. 

Umbrians, 375, 377, 420, 424. 

Ursicinus, 576. 

Utica, 429. 

Valens, 578, &c. 

Valentinian I., 578,679; II.. 582; III., 589, 
591, 592. 

Valerian, 560, 561. 

Valerius, 393; (Corvus), 413, &c. 

Vandals, 690, 595. 


Varro, 449. 

Varus, 523, 624. 

Vp/joa A A 

Veii, 382, 402, 408, &c. 

Venice, 592. 

Vercingetorix, 503. 

Verona; 659. 

Verus, 548, 549. 

Vesontio, 602. 

Vespasian, 534, 536, 537, &o. 

Vestal Virgins, 384. 

Vesuvius, 416, 540. 

Vetranio, 575. 

Veturius, 419. 

Vicramaditya, 29, 45. 

Vindex, Julius, 533. 

Virginia, 406. 

Virginius, 406. 

Viriathus, 467. 

Viridomarus, 444. 

Vitellius, 535, 536. 

Volscians, 400, 402, 411, 417. 
Volusianus, 559, 560. 

Wallia, 588. 

Xanthippus, 221, 234; (II.) 439. 
Xanthus, 205. 

Xenophanes, 209, 210. 

Xenophon, 292, 294. 

Xerxes I., 125, 222, &c., 293; (II.) 298 

Zacynthos, 303. 

Zama, 453. 

Zarmizegethusa, 544. 

Zela, 508. 

Zend-Avesta, 60, &c. 

Zeno, 210; (II.) 597. 

Zenobia, 562, 563. 

Zopyrus, 68. 

Zoroaster, 66, 57. 


Schenck 6° M‘Far lane, Printers , Edinburgh. 









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